Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/516

 The next day after, which was Saturday, and the sixth day of July, there was a general session holden of the princes and lords, both of the ecclesiastical and temporal estates, in the head church of the city of Constance, the emperor Sigismund being president in his imperial robes and habit; in the midst whereof there was made a certain high place, being square about like a table, and hard by it there was a desk of wood, on which the garments and vestments pertaining unto priesthood were laid for this cause, that before John Huss should be delivered over unto the civil power, he should be openly deprived and spoiled of his priestly ornaments. When John Huss was brought thither, he fell dovn upon his knees before the same high place, and prayed a long time. In the mean while the bishop of Londe went up into the pulpit, and made this sermon.

In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Trusting by humble invocation upon the Divine help and aid, most noble prince, and most christian emperor, and you most excellent fathers, and reverend lords, bishops and prelates, also most excellent doctors and masters, most famous and noble dukes, and high counts, honourable nobles and barons, and all other men worthy of remembrance; that the intent and purpose of my mind may the more plainly and evidently appear unto this most sacred congregation, I am first of all determined to treat or speak of that which is read in the epistle on the next Sunday, in the sixth chapter to the Romans; that is to say, 'Let the body of sin be destroyed,' etc.

It appeareth by the authority of Aristotle, in his book entituled 'De Cœlo et theme Mundo,' how wicked, dangerous, and foolish a matter it seemeth to be, not to withstand perverse and wicked beginnings. For he saith, that a small error in the beginning, is very great in the end. It is very damnable and dangerous to have erred, but more hard to be corrected or amended. Whereupon that worthy doctor, St. Jerome, in his book 'On the Exposition of the Catholic Faith,' teacheth how necessary a thing it is, that heretics and heresies should be suppressed, even at the first beginning of them, saying thus: 'The rotten and dead flesh is to be cut off from the body, lest the whole body do perish and putrefy. For a scabbed sheep is to be put out of the fold, lest that the whole flock be infected; and a little fire is to be quenched, lest the whole house be consumed and burned.' Arius was first a spark in Alexandria, who, because he was not at the first quenched, presumed, and went about with his wicked and perverse imaginations, and fantastical inventions, to spot and defile the catholic faith, which is founded and established by Christ, defended with the victorious triumphs of so many martyrs, and illuminated and set forth with the excellent doctrines and writings of so many men. Such therefore must be resisted; such heretics, of necessity, must be suppressed and condemned.

Wherefore I have truly propounded, as touching the punishment of every such obstinate heretic, that the body of sin is to be destroyed. Whereupon it is to be considered, according to the holy traditions of the fathers, that some sins are adverse and contrary to others. Others are annexed or conjoined together; others are, as it were, branches and members of others; and some are, as it were, the roots and heads of others. Amongst all which, those are to be counted the most detestable, out of which the most and worst have their original and beginning. Wherefore, albeit that all sins and offences are to be abhorred of us, yet those are especially to be eschewed, which are the head and root of the rest. For by how much the perverseness of them is of more force and power to hurt, with so much the more speed and circumspection ought they to be rooted out and extinguished, with apt preservatives and remedies. Forasmuch then as amongst all sins, none doth more appear to be inveterate than the mischief of this most execrable schisin, therefore have I right well propounded,