Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/306

254 ished together by the sword. And others, exposing their necks for the truth have been martyred, being seized, imprisoned, and murdered and yet did not deny Christ's truth—priests, and also laymen and women. But those who have oppressed them have gone away clandestinely for, terrified by antichrist's censures and seizures, they have turned into the opposite way. But God, up to this time, multiplies the sons of his church who suffer and are patient and publish the truth of Christ’s law. Therefore, blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has hidden the way of truth from the wise and prudent and revealed it unto simple laymen and little priests who choose rather to obey God than men, who in acts generically good and acts neutral have the life of Christ before their eyes and obey prelates so far as these acts, modified by circumstances, can be reasonably put into practice for edification through the imitation of Christ. For they themselves hold that an act, in order to be virtuous, must be justified by eight circumstances, which are set forth in this line:

Who, what, where, how much, how many, why, in what manner, when.

Who, that is, the individual who ought to obey. What, namely, he ought to do when he is commanded. Where, because in one place it is fitting, in the case of an act good generically or neutral to obey, and not so in another place or in any place whatsoever. How much, namely, he ought to obey, in as far as the command is of something applicable to edification according to the counsel of Jesus Christ or his command. For one is not bound to obey forever his personal superior as the foolish prate, saying, that the pope's