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judge, committing into his hands his own cause, I therefore abide his sentence and his most holy decision, knowing that he will not judge by false evidence and fallible councils, but according to the truth, and to every man's just deserts." His unknown friend, however, was not to be repelled by this language, but replied to the letter of Huss, bringing the matter once more directly home to his heart. "First," he writes to him, 'let it not trouble you, my dearest brother, that you condemn truths, since it is not you that condemn them, but those who are your superiors, and for the present, also, mine. Give heed to that word, Lean not to thine own understanding (Prov. iii. 5). For there are many persons of knowledge and conscience at the council. My son, receive the law of thy mother. This, in relation to the first point. Next, as regards the second, the breaking of your oath; even if that perjury were really a perjury, still the guilt of it would not fall on you, but on those who require the oath. Next, there are no heresies, so far as you are concerned, when the obstinacy is removed. Augustin, Origen, and the Master of Sentences committed errors and rejoiced to be set right again. I have often supposed that I understood a thing accurately, and yet was mistaken; when corrected, I have turned about cheerfully. I write with brevity, because I write to one who understands. You will not depart from the truth, but come nearer to the truth. You will not commit a perjury, but better the matter; you will occasion no scandal, but edify. Eleazar was a glorious Jew; still more glorious was the Jewess with the seven sons and eight martyrs (2 Macc. vii.). Paul was let down in a basket, that he might advance the better cause. The judge to whom you appeal, the Lord Jesus, will release you from your appeal in consideration that contentions are still due from you for the faith of Christ.* To these re

* Judex appellationis vestræ Dominus Jesus det vobis apostolos, et sunt ii: Adhuc debentur tibi pro fide Christi certamina. The term "apostolis" is here used in the sense of the later judicial Greek and Latin-a document by which a court dismissed a person from its own jurisdiction, and granted him liberty to betake himself to another, allowed him a release from his appeal. Now, this document is represented as implied in the cited words: Huss is reserved for further contests in behalf of the faith. The writer, therefore, recognised the

presentations Huss replied: "All this the council has often required of me. But as it is implied in it all that I recant, abjure, and submit to a penance, which would oblige me to deny many truths; next, as it would be a perjury to abjure errors falsely imputed to me; then, as I should by so doing give occasion of offence to many of God's people to whom I have preached; therefore it were better for me that a millstone were hung about my neck, and that I should be cast into the midst of the sea; and fourthly, if I complied to escape a brief punishment and shame, I should fall into the greatest punishment and shame, if I did not, before my death, feel the most poignant remorse for what I had done. The seven martyrs, therefore, belonging to the times of the Maccabees, come up before me to confirm me, who chose rather to be cut in pieces than to eat flesh contrary to the word of God. That Eleazar, too, comes up before me, who would not even say that he had eaten that which was forbidden by the law, lest he should leave a bad example to those who came after him, but chose rather to perish as a martyr. How should I, then, who have before my eyes all those examples, and many holy men and women of the new covenant, who have surrendered themselves to martyrdom rather than consent to sin, I who have for so many years preached of patience and fortitude, how should I fall into many falsehoods and perjury, and give scandal to many sons of God? Far, very far, be it from me to do any such thing; because the Lord Jesus Christ will most abundantly reward me, since he now gives me the help of patience." †

Huss was visited in his prison by several members of the council, both strangers and acquaintances, who sought to persuade him to recant in order to save his life. A doctor who visited him laboured to convince him that he would be

cause for which Huss contended as that of the faith, and placed hopes upon him, in case he should preserve his life, that he would still further promote the cause of the faith in fighting against the corruptions of the world.

* [In the Latin text which, as we have often seen, is extremely incorrect, quia stands here, which Neander translates without taking care to get rid of the resulting anacoluthon. But perhaps it would be better read primo, and then let secundo, tertio, quarto, follow in their order. Editor.] † Opp. I. fol. 70; Ep. 38, 39, 40, and 41.

Paletz

innocent of all guilt if he submitted blindly to the decision of the council. He added: "If the council declared that thou hadst but one eye, when thou hast two eyes, thou wouldest still be bound to submit to their decision." Huss replied: "Though the whole world should tell me this, yet I could not admit it so long as I have my reason, as I now exercise it, without gainsaying my conscience." After many words the doctor finally gave up the point, saying: "It is true, I have not chosen a good example."* himselff said to Huss that he ought not to dread the shame of recantation, but to look simply at the good which would come out of it. Huss replied: "It is a greater shame to be condemned and to be burned, than to recant; how should I, then, dread the shame? But give me your opinion: what would you do, if errors were ascribed to you which you had never taught? Would you consent to abjure them?" Paletz replied: "It is an awkward thing." And he began to weep. Several who visited Huss endeavoured to convince him also on the ground of that monkish notion of humility, that he ought to feel no scruples about abjuring even what he had never taught, when it was required of him by the council; by so doing he would not be guilty of a lie; it would be but an act of submission to higher authority, an act of humility. Examples were cited of persons who, from humility, confessed themselves guilty of crimes they had never committed; such cases occurring in the histories of the ancient monks. An Englishman mentioned the example of persons in England suspected of Wickliffitism, among whom were several very worthy men, who all at the command of the bishop of Canterbury abjured the Wickliffite errors. But all this was quite at variance with that strict regard to truth which was a ruling principle with Huss.§

From his cell, Huss had contemplated the course of action pursued by the council. It could scarcely fail to make a great impression on his mind to see the pope, for whose authority men were so zealous, the man who had occasioned his imprisonment, afterwards deposed himself

* Opp. 1. fol. 68, 1; Ep. 32.

† Huss relates this in a letter of the 23rd of June. ‡ Opp. I. fol. 67, 1; Ep. 30.

§ Ibid. fol. 67, 2; Ep. 31.

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by the council, charged with the most atrocious crimes, and closely confined in the castle of Gottleben, which Huss had left. He recognised in all this a judgment of God, and could bring it in evidence against those advocates of papal absolutism, who accused him of high treason against the pope's authority. He writes: "They have condemned their own head; what now can those men have to say, who hold the pope to be God on earth, and maintain that he cannot sin, cannot practise simony? that he is the head of the collective holy church, which he governs extraordinarily well? who say, he is the head of the holy church, which he spiritually nourishes; he is the fountain out of which flows all power and goodness; he is the sun of the church; he is the spotless asylum, and that to him every Christian must betake himself for refuge? Now," says he, "this head is cut off, the earthly god is in chains, accused of sin, the fountain is dried up, the sun is eclipsed, the heart torn out, the asylum has fled from Constance, so that nobody can take refuge in him. His own council has accused him of heresy, because he made sale of indulgences, bishoprics, and other benefices; and those very persons have condemned him, of whom many bought their places of him, while many others push the same trade among themselves. He expresses his indignation that the pope should be condemned on account of simony by prelates, who, after their own fashion, practised the same iniquity. If Christ should address this council as he did those who asked him to condemn the woman taken in adultery, he that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone at the pope, they would go out one after another. Wherefore did

they kneel before the pope-kiss his feet, and call him most holy father, when they knew him to be guilty of a most atrocious crime? Wherefore did the cardinals choose for a pope, one who was the murderer of his predecessor?" Thus he writes in another letter: "Now you may understand what the life of the clergy is who say they are true representatives of Christ and his apostles, who call themselves the most holy church, the most infallible council; and yet this same council has been in error; it has first

* On the 24th June, Mikowec, Letter 6.

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honoured John the Twenty-third with bowed knee, and called him Most Holy, while yet they knew that he was a shameful murderer, and guilty of other crimes besides, as they themselves afterwards declared when they condemned him ?"* In the abominations of the secularized church, Huss sees fulfilled already, as Janow had done, the predictions of Christ regarding the abomination in the holy place according to Daniel. He writes to the Bohemians, that they should not allow themselves to be terrified by the council of Constance; they would never go to Bohemia; many of the council would die before they could force the delivering up of the books of Huss in Bohemia. These books, like storks, would fly in all directions, from the council, dispersing into all quarters of the world; and when winter came, they would perceive what they had effected in the summer. Huss supposed that he had received many prophetic intimations in his dreams. Know," he writes to his friends, "that I have had great conflicts in my dreams. I dreamed beforehand of the flight of the pope. And after relating it, Chlum said to me in my dream, 'The pope will also return.' Then I dreamt of the imprisonment of Jerome, though not literally according to the fact. All the different prisons to which I have been conveyed have been represented beforehand to me in my dreams. There have often appeared to me serpents, with heads also on their tails; but they have never been able to bite me. I do not write this because I believe myself a prophet, or wish to exalt myself, but to let you know that I have had temptations both of body and soul, and the greatest fear lest I might transgress the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ." Huss proved himself to be a genuine Christian martyr in the succession of Christ; for it was not with stoical apathy, not in the intoxication of fanaticism that renders obtuse the natural feelings of humanity, but with entire self-possession, in the undisturbed and full feeling of human weaknesses, contending with and conquering them by the power of faith, that he gave his life as an offering to God. This picture Huss exhibits to us in that noble letter which he wrote on holy eve before

* Opp. I. fol. 63, 2; Ep. 19.

VOL. IX.

† Ibid. fol. 68, 2; Ep. 33. 2 M

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