Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/243

Rh Glossa ordinaria also agrees in its comment on the words: "the powers that be are ordained of God" [Romans 13:1]. The Master of Sentences also agrees, 2:44 [Migne's ed., p. 246].

Perfect obedience is that whereby the person obeying places all his willing and not willing—velle et nolle—in the will of his prelate, to do the acts commanded, so long as the command does not gainsay the divine will or good morals or the necessities of life, and so long as it does not conflict with the commands and counsels of the Lord Jesus Christ. And because obedience appertains to commands and counsels, the difference is to be noted between a command and an evangelical counsel, so far as they may be distinguished as opposites.

A precept or command is a general teaching of God, obligating every man under pain of mortal sin—namely, in cases in which he has fallen away from the command. Hence the saints who for a period of their life lived hypocritically sinned mortally for that period. So also the damned, by persistent false living sin persistently in hell.

A counsel is a special teaching of God, obligating under pain only of venial sin and for the period of this life. And so the doctors say that precepts are for the imperfect, obligating them for the reason that they are servants. But