Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/231

 that the words had been falsely ascribed to him. In preaching about the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, he had exhorted that all should gird themselves with the sword and defend the truth of the Gospel, but, in order that his enemies might not have wherewith to entrap him, he had been careful to add that he spoke not of the material sword, but of the sword which is the Word of God. At this the members of the council cried out, twitting him with the strange inconsistency of his reference to Moses’ sword, if the explanation he was then making was genuine.

As for the charge of having broken up the university of Prague, he replied that the question of giving three votes to the Bohemians was one of justice and conforming to the charters of Paris and Bologna.

The main objection, underlying all the accusations, was Huss’s admiration of Wyclif and his alleged advocacy of Wyclif’s teachings, not only in the university but also in the pulpit. To this charge Huss replied that he had not defended any erroneous doctrines, which in this quarter or that might be ascribed to Wyclif, and that he did not know of any Bohemian who had defended any such erroneous doctrine. He knew of no Bohemian who had been a heretic or was a heretic at that time. Wyclif was not his father. And, as regards the XLV Articles, he persisted in his refusal to assent to their condemnation on the ground that the doctors themselves had not decided to which category they severally belonged—catholic, heretical, erroneous or scandalous. As for his protest against Zbynek’s burning of Wyclif’s books. Zbynek was not justified in his action and had no business to burn them without first reading them and finding out what were their contents.

He had said, so it was further witnessed, that when the monks and clergy failed in St. Paul’s Cathedral to convict Wyclif, the very heavens had come to Wyclif’s help with thunder and lightning, and the earth had belched forth its