Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/214

162 people shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously.' It is certain that for all the faithful the Roman church is the place which the Lord has chosen, the place where the Lord has placed the primacy of the whole church, and the high priest who occupies the primacy, and is set over that place, is the pope, the true and manifest successor of Peter. And the cardinals are the priests of the tribe of Levi who are joined with the lord pope in the administration of the priestly office, to whom in cases of doubt and difficulty recourse must be had in matters, catholic and ecclesiastical, the judgment of God being followed.

"Hence Jerome, Ep. ad papam [Letter to Damasus, Friedberg, 1: 970], speaking of the same thing, says: 'This is the faith, most blessed pope, which we have learned in the catholic church and which we have always held, and, if anything less proper or anything indiscreet has been placed in her, we desire that it be corrected by thee, who holdest Peter's seat and faith. And if this, our confession, approves itself to the judgment of thy apostleship—whosoever may wish to charge me with guilt—he will prove himself to be inexperienced or malevolent, or perchance not a catholic but a heretic.'"

This exposition, so far as the principles go, I think flowed chiefly from the head of Stephen Palecz, for by it he attempts first to arouse the pope and the cardinals against the party opposed to him, when he says: "Certain of the clergy of Bohemia, leaning too little on the pope and the cardinals, do not wish to agree to this": namely, that the pope is the head of the Roman church and the cardinals its body, the true and manifest vicars of Christ. However, in regard to this too little dependence, I say that, so far as their vanity, greed and illegal commands go, the pope with the cardinals ought to be depended upon little. For so the Saviour put little dependence upon the savorless salt, which was good for noth-