Page:Chelčický, Molnar - The Net of Faith.djvu/53

 This book is very needful for these misguided and distraught times. It received the name or title of The Net of Faith which was written (and) composed by a man, honest, noble and holy in the hope of God, richly endowed for this task by the bounty of our Lord and filled with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit; and his name is Peter of Chelčice. This man was shining with the inward gifts of God in the days of Master Rokycana, and was well known to the master since he often abided in his presence. The said Peter wrote many divers and most useful and necessary books about the Law of our Lord, leaving them to the Holy Church in order to aid her in her struggle against the Anti-Christ and his snares.

And so, whoever you may be who shall often read in these books and look into them, you will have to admit that it pleased Almighty God our Lord not to forget our forefathers but, on the contrary, to pour out His Holy Spirit upon them so that, being able to understand the Scriptures of the Holy Law according to the spirit of Jesus Christ, they might share with others of future generations the remembrance of these gifts that were given into their trust.

If the books of this man Peter of Chelčice have not frequently seen light until recently, the cause is to be sought nowhere else but in the priesthood of the Pope of the Anti-Christ[228]; which priesthood – with many of its number living disreputably and ignobly – has not ceased and even today is not desisting from defaming before the general public the books of this excellent man by calling them schismatic and heretical, for no other reason except that (the reading of them) shrinks their benefice, reduces the offerings in their plates, and scares them away from their rich soup. For he said about them that they wasted the substance of the Law of God with gluttonous living behind rich tables and that they drowned the light of exemplary living with costly and rare wines.

It is these very priests who, flushed with anger against Peter, condemn him acrimoniously as a heretic. But good and honest priests do love him and make use of his books.

The Almighty Lord and most gracious God does not withhold His gifts from those who seek Him; it pleases Him to award them from the bountiful store of His inspiration, so that they might put aside all threats of the Antichrist and his harmless intimidations and, getting hold of the truth written down in these books inspired by the Spirit, love and study it as a gift of our Lord God Almighty for these latter times and days of the Antichrist.

Numerous men of almost all estates – the estate of Christ’s priests, the estate of the Lords and the estate of the Knights, the estate of the Burghers as well as of many learned and common people – all of them cherish, accept, and honor the truths of these books and other writings of Peter Chelčický; and they do not slight him because he is a layman, not learned in the Latin tongue. For though he was not a master of the seven arts, he certainly was a practitioner of the eight beatitudes and of all the divine commandments,