Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/311

259 ing a remedy against the spots of his bride, and Paul contradicts the idea that it is wanting, Gal. 5, for he resisted Peter, the pope, to his face for a light offence and also in his writing left for those who were to come after, that in cases of like falling away they should do the same to their brother. Therefore, it is faithless to assert that the higher rank may not have its fault told it in matters moral by an inferior. Wherefore, in case of a fault, a son may lawfully tell his father his fault, a daughter the mother, a subject the prelate, a disciple his teacher—all following the rule of love.

However, against these things the objection is made that the pope has the place of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth. But it is not permitted any one to tell him his fault, as appears from Matt. 16. When, on account of Christ's rebuke, Peter is called Satan, is it not, therefore, permitted to find fault with him that occupies Peter's stead? But this kind of reasoning includes too much, for it would necessitate saying that every vicar of Christ is impeccable, just as Christ is impeccable. But it is a good inference that neither pope nor other person ought to be found fault with or corrected in so far as they follow the Head, Christ. But, if a bishop or confessor occupying Christ's stead attempt an act of selfindulgence with a virgin or a chaste wife, ought he not to be vehemently found fault with as if he were antichrist and the faithless enemy of his own soul? For in committing such an illicit act, he does not occupy Christ's stead, but the place of antichrist himself and the devil, tempting a woman most iniquitously. And it is clear, that that statement of St. Bernard which the doctors adduce, namely, that in those things, that is, 'things intermediate, it is certainly not right to prefer our view to the sentence of the masters, and in these neither the command nor the prohibition of prelates are altogether to be spurned'—the circumstances must be understood fitted to the act of obedience which is owed in respect to the mode, place, time and person, as has been said. For often the student with reason refuses to obey in an act intermediate