Page:John Huss, his life, teachings and death, after five hundred years.pdf/59

 seeks after hire rather than to follow Christ’s commands. He invents all sorts of precepts and rules in order to plunder the people. Such ministers speak evil in high places, calling out that all who disobey them are heretics and that they have the power to condemn to hell. Yea, they claim power to control heaven with their tongues, preaching that they have authority to open it to whom they will and to release from pain those who pay money. They open the door of heaven to persons immediately upon their death. These hireling priests are wolves preying upon the flock and are of antichrist, the great wolf, Jer. 5: 6. They are now so many in number and so influential that they seize faithful shepherds who feed their flocks on the pastures of God’s Word, and put them to death as heretics.”

The following excerpts from his sermons will sufficiently illustrate his homiletical method. Preaching on Christ’s words, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” Huss said: “This means that, first of all and chiefly, I be engaged in that which concerns my Father and not in the service of any creature whatsoever. And why did Christ give this answer? Because he came into the world for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth. And let this be an admonition to fathers and mothers that they put no stumbling-block in the way of their children serving God. If children follow their own wills, parents should at once seek after the cause of their doing so and study how they may properly admonish their children and set them in the right path. And children should take their lessons from the conduct of Jesus, not to withstand their parents and be angry against them. For Jesus spoke in humble tone when he asked his father and mother, ‘Why do ye seek me?’ So every man, and especially prelates, should take Jesus’ treatment of his parents as an example that they may first of all seek the profit of the church and have respect to God more than to any mortal man. For Jesus, setting aside the will of his earthly father and