Page:Letters of John Huss Written During His Exile and Imprisonment.djvu/228

 Scriptures, and to draw from them salutary instruction. They indicate, besides, an independence of views which must have given umbrage to the clergy. It is thus that Huss, in arranging the Epistles of the Apostles, names first that of St James, who, he says, presided at the Council of Jerusalem. He assigns the first place to this Epistle, on account of the superior dignity which the Apostle bears in the eyes of Christians by reason of three different claims:—“First, In addressing himself particularly to converted Jews, who were superior to the pagans; afterwards, in consideration of his personal merit; for although Peter was the first of the apostles, nevertheless the first evangelical preaching is traced to St James;—and lastly, in consideration of the dignity of the place where he held his See, which was Jerusalem, where the first preaching of God’s word took place.”

These works of John Huss on the Scriptures, so different in their nature, and so considerable in their extent, are, however, like most of the theological writings of the epoch, prolix and diffuse. The author subdivides his matter without end, fatigues with his repetitions, and, in his commentaries, presents, in general, subtile explanations and interpretations, sometimes trifling, and often forced, in order to discover in each word of the sacred books of the Old Testament, the type of our Saviour’s words in the New one.