Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/714

 foundation, which is Christ. Wherefore the said Bohemians protested, that they would not simply and plainly (God being their good Lord) yield themselves to their doctrine, nor to such rash and hasty decrees; lest, through that their hasty and uncircumspect submission, they should bind their faith and life contrary to the wholesome and sound doctrine of our Lord Christ Jesus. In short, in no case would they enter into any agreement of peace, except their four articles, which they counted for evangelical verities, were first accepted and approved. Which being obtained (said they), if they would condescend with them in the verity of the gospel, so would they join together, and be made one with them in the Lord, &c.

When the ambassadors saw the matter would not otherwise be brought to pass, they required to have those articles delivered unto them in a certain form, which they sent unto the council by three Bohemian ambassadors.

Afterwards the council sent a declaration into Bohemia, to be published unto the people in the common assemblies of the kingdom by the ambassadors, who were commanded to report unto the Bohemians, in the name of the council, that if they would receive the declaration of those three articles, and the unity of the church, there should be a mean found whereby the matter touching the first article, of the communion under both kinds, should be passed with peace and quietness.

They propounded in Prague, in an open assembly of the nobles and commons, the declarations of the three articles in form :

Forasmuch as touching the doctrine of the verity, we ought to proceed soberly and warily, that the truth may be declared with words so orderly conceived and uttered, that there be no offence given to any man, whereby he should fall to take occasion of error, and (to use the words of Isidore) that nothing by obscurity be left doubtful; whereas you have propounded touching the inhibition and correction of sins in these words, 'All mortal sins, and especially open offences, ought to be rooted out, punished, and inhibited, by them whose duty it is so to do, reasonably and according to the law of God.' Here it is to be marked and understood, that these words, 'whose duty it is', are too general, and may be an offence; and according to the meaning of the Scripture, we ought not to lay any stumbling stock before the blind, and the ditches are to be closed up, that our neighbour's ox do not fall therein: all occasion of offence is to be taken away. Therefore we say, that according to the meaning of the holy Scripture, and the doctrine of the holy doctors, it is thus universally to be holden, that all mortal sins, especially public offences, are to be rooted out, corrected, and inhibited, as reasonably as may be, according to the law of God, and the institutions of the fathers. The power to punish these offenders doth not pertain unto any private person, but only unto those who have jurisdiction of the law over them, the distinction of law and justice being orderly observed.

As touching the preaching of the word of God, which article you have alleged in this form, 'That the word of God should be freely and faithfully preached by the fit and apt ministers of the Lord:' lest by this word 'freely' occasion might be taken of disordered liberty (which, as you have often said, you do not mean), the circumstance thereof is to be understood; and we say, that (according to the meaning of the holy Scripture, and doctrine of the holy fathers) it is thus universally to be believed: That the word of God ought freely, but not every where, but faithfully and orderly, to be preached by the priests and Levites of the