Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/16

xii III. . Huss's line of thought runs as follows: First, the author defines the church and its headship. He proceeds by discussing the authority of the pope and the college of cardinals. The power of the keys is then taken up at length, and the limits in ecclesiastical matters of the authority of superiors over inferiors examined. Finally, the Scriptures are set forth as the sufficient standard of faith and conduct. The conclusions, thus reached, Huss then applies to his own case of alleged contumacy to the mandates of his ecclesiastical superiors with the result that a Christian's supreme duty is to the Scriptures and God, for, as he often repeats: "We ought to obey God rather than men."

Not only are these main principles also discussed in the three rejoinders referred to above, but they are taken up in other works such as his Six Errors,—de sex Erroribus—his Attack on the Bulls of Indulgence, his Reply to an Occult Adversary and in his letters written during the period of his semi-voluntary exile from Prague and his imprisonment at Constance, especially his letters to Christian Prachaticz, rector of the university of Prague.

In the following fundamental positions the Treatise on the Church opposed the accredited ecclesiastical system which the fifteenth century had inherited from the age of the Schoolmen.

1. The Church. The holy catholic—or universal—church is the body of the predestinate in heaven, earth and purgatory. The church is either general or particular. Wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ's name there is the church, whether in India, Greece, Spain, Rome or any other locality. The church is one throughout the world. The bond of unity is predestinating grace or, as Huss also put it, faith, hope and love. The pope, as he affirmed dis-