Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/217

5* man, just as the heavens are higher than the earth. And the knowledge of God makes man meek and humble, while the wisdom of man puffs up and gives itself air through pride. Therefore this excellent man Peter Chelc̄icky̍, the chosen vessel of the Lord, being endowed with many gifts through the grace of God and having learned in the highest school of the Holy Spirit, brings forth old and new things out of the treasures of the Lord, writing these most useful and necessary books for every one and all men of all estates.

And Peter writes about every one of the estates, revealing their corrupting evils; he begins with the highest estates: he looks at the estates of the emperors, kings, dukes, lords, knights, burghers, guilds, as well as those of the common people, not forgetting to rebuke even the peasants for their disorders; but he writes especially and above everything else against the so-called spiritual estates: the popes, the cardinals, the bishops, the archbishops, the abbots, the orders of monks and mendicant friars, as well as the deacons and pastors, the chaplains, and all this debauched, ignoble, haughty, avaricious, lascivious, parsimonious, beery, generation of clergy, stubbornly steeped in all mortal sins and heresies. He writes not, however, against honest, honorable Isaiah 55:9

I-Cor. 8:1.

Matt. 13:52

i.e., "and goes all the way down the society."