Page:Letters of John Huss Written During His Exile and Imprisonment.djvu/38

 most powerful and eminent men, like a lamb in the midst of wolves and lions. If such a man is to be regarded as a heretic, no person under the sun can be looked on as a true Christian. By what fruits, then, shall we recognise the truth, if it is not manifest by those with which John Huss was so richly adorned?

The greatest crime of John Huss was his having declared that a man of impious life was not the head of the universal Church: he allowed him to be the chief of a particular church, but not of the universal one; just the same as a minister of the word, whose life is criminal, still remains minister according to external appearance, although he is not, on that account, a member of the saints in his church. In a similar manner, John Huss denied that an impious and flagitious pontiff was a worthy one, although seated on the throne of the Church; it is as if we should declare that Judas, being both traitor and robber, was not an honest man, although he had been called to the functions of an apostle. Every effort, in fact, was made to prevail on John Huss to admit that a criminal pope ought to be regarded as a saint, and was infallible; that his words and acts were alike holy, and ought to be received and respected as so many articles of faith. All the men of the Council of Constance, wise as they were considered, would have lent a favourable ear to such assertions,—they who, when they had dethroned three culpable pontiffs, did not allow to any one the right of