Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/89



With the proper obedience to be rendered to the Church of Jesus Christ and His supreme pontiff.

Seeing that I am always ready to give an answer to the satisfaction of every man who asks concerning the faith I hold, I declare with a sincere heart that the Lord Jesus Christ is very God and very man; and that His whole gospel is established so firmly in the truth that not a jot nor tittle of it can fail; and finally that His Holy Church hath been so firmly founded on a firm rock that the gates of hell cannot in any wise prevail against it. I am ready in hope of the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself the Head, to bear the punishment of a dreadful death rather than to state by private judgment aught else than His truth, or to declare what would be contrary to the will of Christ and His Church. For these reasons I confidently, truthfully, and steadfastly assert that I have been wrongfully defamed to the Apostolic Seat by those heresy hunters. If they have given or are giving information that I taught the people that in the sacrament the material substance of the bread remains, it is a falsehood. It is a falsehood that I have said that when the host is elevated it is then the body of Christ, but when it is laid down it is not. It is a falsehood that a priest in mortal sin cannot consecrate. It is a falsehood that the lords may withdraw temporal goods from the clergy and