Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/350

298 dicted and aliens from the holy priesthood. The reason is because those simoniacs buy and: sell excommunications, suspensions and interdicts, and with these as their weapons they feed and defend their simony most powerfully. And a proof is not necessary, for this simoniacal trafficking is patent even to the eye of rustics, who are bound, vexed, oppressed and plundered by these selfsame simoniacs. For to such proportions has this heresy of Simon Magus and Gehazi grown that men without compunction in season and out of season, and even the unwilling, are impelled on to this sort of criminal offence. And all trafficking of this sort arises from the method in vogue with the Roman curia, which practises it in turn with the curias of the bishops after the manner of Simon Magus and Gehazi. This appears in the dimissorial letters for confirmings, pardonings, admissions, and also in other things invented to get pecuniary plunders.

Now, as to the condemnation of the XLV Articles, it should be said—but I speak briefly—that up to this day the