Page:Chelčický, Molnar - The Net of Faith.djvu/140

 of the citizenry. His proposition means catering to human weakness, greed, comfort, and false pleasures. ]

However, the faith of the saints means believing in God and His law, even if it involves a stand against one’s personal advantage, against comfort, against the established customs and life of the community. Rather death than choosing anything that stands against the law of God! Without the law of God faith is dead and the devil holds the scepter…

CHAPTER 79

ARGUMENTS OF AEGIDIUS CARLERII (CONTINUED)

The misled people die to goodness because they stand under the civil rule and under the blindest hypocrites who poison them continually with their venom. The people can show nothing good about them, even though they trust in them…

The rulers have first of all established their authority through the Scripture that says that they do not bear the sword in vain and that they are the servants of God to execute His wrath on the wrong-doers.[493] And after they had looked at their (role) more carefully they realized that it would not be wise for them to serve God in punishing with the sword all mortal sins against God, because then the whole Bohemian countryside would become a barren land, and very few people would be left alive.

Therefore, examining the law again, after they had subjected the people to the authority of their sword, they made the law over to suit their ends better. They eased up on the original justice, choosing a “servant of God” who, with the sword in his hand, would watch over the three sins that disturb the welfare of the community: namely robbery, murder, and adultery. [ They close their eyes before other sins that are evil in the sight of God. They serve not God with their authority, but themselves. ] When the servant of the Church – who thinks he is the successor of the apostles – leads the people to repentance saying that Christ has not come to save the righteous but the sinful … he contradicts the intention of the servant with the sword who thinks he serves God by executing the sinners…  If the servant of the sword[494] cuts off the heads of the evil-doers, he deprives them of their chance of salvation…  And so these two ‘servants of God,’ one spiritual and the other secular, stand in each other’s way…  The ridiculousness of this situation is often apparent. When the servant of the state leads a sinner to execution, the servant of the Church runs there trying to prevent this and to lead the sinner to repentance… The one wants to condemn to death by the judgment of St. Paul, the other wants to save by confession on the basis of the Scripture…  Both claim to serve the same Lord. When men lose sight of truth they wander as blind in darkness, clutching this or that, whatever their hands can find.

Both the state and the Church depend upon the sword as their final argument. And both surpass the pagans in their querulousness, for even the pagans are more moderate in their use of the sword since they do not have to contend with so many lords and useless clergymen – knights of the Cross, abbots, bishops, popes – who all hold great dominions and lead wars as other servants of the sword… Yes, they do not bear their swords for nothing; they rob and oppress the poor working people.