Page:Letters of John Huss Written During His Exile and Imprisonment.djvu/27

Rh who have agitated the world, and to determine the work which is personal to him, what, in fact, he has left behind him that is durable. To succeed in such an endeavour, we must take into account a prejudice which still prevailed at that period. False notions had for centuries been in circulation, and had taken root in Christendom, relative to the authority of individual convictions, judgment, and conscience. It was denied that man, sustained by Divine grace, could find in himself any assistance; it was believed to be a meritorious act of Christian virtue to seek for no direction in one’s own internal feeling, and to trample reason under foot; an opinion was adopted, not because in itself it had been found conformable to the Scriptures or to truth, but because it was considered to agree with the decisions of some great doctor, pope, or council, or because it was found in Augustin, Origen, or Jerome. Tradition alone was listened to; and it was altogether forgotten that the first Christians, who had sprung from the Jews and