Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/166

 stand for the Pope and the cardinals, seeing that they are stained with more vices than other men, as Stanislaus and Palecz bore witness. There have been many heretical popes, and many of very doubtful character. A woman hath sat in the chief seat of the Church. How, then, hath the Roman Church—that is, cardinals and Pope—remained always without a blemish? ? Would that the disciples of Antichrist were content to believe that the Holy Roman Church is the whole body of Christ’s faithful saints militant in the faith of Christ! This doctrine Peter, Bishop of Rome, and, above all, Christ, the Bishop of our souls, taught. Though we could conceive of Rome as overthrown, Pope and cardinals included, as completely as Sodom, still the Holy Church would remain

I wish to abide by this: I hold the Pope to be Christ’s Vicar in the Roman Church; but it is not the whole of my faith. Item, I abide by this: if the Pope is predestinate and in the exercise of the pastoral office follows Christ in his own life, then he is the head of so much of the Church Militant as he rules over; and if he accordingly rules as head over what is now the entire Church Militant