Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/207

Rh keep God's law, the Lord said: "I say unto you, the kingdom of heaven shall be taken away from you and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof," Matt. 21:43. These words the Saviour spoke to the priests when they alone bore sentence against themselves in that they said: "He will miserably destroy those wicked men and will let out the vineyard to other husbandmen who shall render him the fruits in their seasons." How, therefore, is the hand of the Lord shortened that He is not able to cast out the pope and the cardinals and appoint others in their places who, though they have no titles, will build up the church as the Lord did with the apostles?

Likewise all bishops of Christ's church, who follow Christ in their lives, they are true vicars of the apostles and they are not pope or cardinals. Therefore, other true successors of the apostles can be found and given besides the pope and the cardinals. The consequence is given with the minor premise, and the first part of it is clear from Decretum, 21, in novo [Friedberg, 1: 69, 70], where Pope Anacletus says that "the rest of the apostles, by reason of an equal fellowship [with Christ], received with Peter honor and authority." And later on he says: "When they were deceased, bishops arose in their places." And here the Gloss says, Argumentum, that "every bishop is equal in apostolic power by virtue of his ordination and the ground of his consecration." The same is clear from Decretum, 24: 1, Loquitur ad Petrum [Friedberg, 1: 971], where Cyprian, the bishop and martyr, says that "after his resurrection Christ conferred on all the apostles equal power." This also appears from what Jerome says, Dist. 95, Olim (Friedberg, 1: 332]: "The same person formerly was both presbyter and bishop, before rivalries had been started by the insinuation of the devil, and before it was said amongst the people, 'I am of Paul and I of Apollos.'"

Likewise, all archbishops, patriarchs and bishops, at the council of Pisa who recognized, determined and condemned