The scattering of his ashes an emblem of the dispersion of his doctrine. John Huss, of Bohemia. which yet TO THIS DAY, for the most part of his articles, do remain, notwithstanding the transitory body and bones of the man were thus consumed and dispersed." I will close this account of the "morning star of the Reformation," by citing the words of Fuller the historian, in reference to the bones of Wickliff-words which are worthy to be written in letters of gold. "The brook Swift did convey his ashes into Avon, the Avon into Severn, the Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. AND THUS THE ASHES OF WICKLIFF ARE THE Emblem OF HIS DOCTRINE, WHICH IS NOW DISPERSED ALL THE WORLD over. JOHN CHAPTER III. HUSS OF BOHEMIA. HIS CONDEMNATION AND MARTYRDOM BY § 23.-DURING the latter years of the venerable Wickliff, a youth was growing up in an obscure village in Bohemia, who was destined to bear the torch of gospel truth which the English reformer had kindled, into the very recesses of popish darkness, to seal, with the blood of martyrdom, his testimony against the corruptions of anti-Christ, and to transmit, with a martyr's hand, that torch of truth through a long succession of spiritual descendants. This youth was John Huss, or John of Huss, or Hussenitz, the small village of Bohemia which was rendered illustrious by his birth, on the 6th of July, 1373. At the death of Wickliff in 1384, Huss was a boy of eleven, pursuing his studies at a school in the town of Prachatitz, and aiming by his diligence and assiduity to reward the care and the tenderness of a kind and widowed mother.t It is related of the youthful John Huss, that when he was one evening reading by the fire the life of St. Laurence, his imagination * Fuller's Church History of Britain, from the birth of Christ till 1646-book iv., page 171. If Fuller could thus speak two centuries ago, what would he have said, had he been living now, and beheld the doctrines of Wickliff and the New Testament spreading in India, Burmah, Persia, China, Africa and the Islands of the South Seas? † See L'Enfant's Council of Constance, book i., chap. 20-to which valuable and authentic work, together with the work of Bonnechose, I am indebted for most of the facts in the present chapter. The work of L'Enfant is the great storehouse of facts and authorities, to which subsequent writers, including Bonnechose, have had recourse, in reference to the lives of Huss and Jerome, and the proceedings of the council of Constance, which condemned them to the flames. It is a work, the accuracy of which rests not merely upon the authority of the learned L'Enfant-though that is highly respectable-but upon the testimony of Romish writers themselves, who are constantly referred to by L'Enfant. Huss's first feelings at the perusal of the writings of Wickliff. His subsequent favorable opinion. kindled at the narration of the martyr's sufferings, and he thrust his own hand into the flames. Being suddenly prevented by one of his fellow-pupils from holding it there, and then questioned as to his design, he replied: "I was only trying what part of the tortures of this holy man I might be capable of enduring." To the exemplary moral character and excellent mental ability of Huss, even Romish writers have borne testimony. "Thus," says the Jesuit Balbinus, "John Huss was even more remarkable for his acuteness than his eloquence; but the modesty and severity of his conduct, his austere and irreproachable life, his pale and melancholy features, his gentleness and affability to all, even the most humble, persuaded more than the greatest eloquence."* § 24.-In the boyhood of Huss, the writings of Wickliff were already known in Bohemia. They had probably been brought there from England, in consequence of the intercourse between the two countries, resulting from the fact that the queen of Richard II., at that time king of England, was a Bohemian princess, the sister of king Wenceslaus. At the first perusal of Wickliff's writings, it is said that he read them with a pious horror; but in after years, when his judgment became more matured, and his knowledge of the corruptions and disorders of the popes and the priests more extensive, he formed a far more favorable opinion of the doctrines of the English reformer, though he clung, even to the close of his life, to some Romish opinions which were rejected by Wickliff. It is even related of him, by Æneas Sylvius, afterwards pope Pius II., that after entering upon the priesthood he was accustomed, in his discourses from the pulpit of Bethlehem, to address his earnest vow to Heaven, that, "whenever he should be removed from this life, he might be admitted to the same regions where the soul of Wickliff resided; since he doubted not, that he was a good and holy man, and worthy of a habitation in heaven."+ As the disgraceful schism continued, Huss, who had now entered upon the priesthood, studied more seriously the writings of Wickliff, and spoke of them with greater praise. He put himself forward, neither as the leader of a sect, nor an innovator: he laid claim to no admiration, or submission, or eulogium, from others; he simply drew his force from the authority of the Divine word, which he preached in his chapel of Bethlehem with an indefatigable zeal, and which, it was asserted, the priests had disfigured or veiled to such a degree, that it seemed as if the Holy Word was then for * Subtilior tamen quam eloquentior semper est habitus Hussus; sed mores ad omnem servitutem conformati, vita horrida et sine deliciis, omnibus abrupta, quam nullus accusare posset, tristis et exhausta facies, languens corpus, et parata omnibus obvia, etiam vilissimo cuique, benevolentia, omni lingua facundius perorabant. -(Balbinus, Epit. Rer. Bohem., p. 431.) "Qui, cum se libenter audiri animadverteret, multa de libris Viclefi in medium attulit, asserens in iis omnem veritatem contineri; adjiciensque crebro inter prædicandum, se, postquam ex luce migraret, ea loca proficisci cupere, ad quæ Viclefi anima pervenisset; quem virum fuisse bonum, sanctum, cœloque dignum non dubitaret." (En. Syl. Hist. Boh., 1. xxxv.) Huss gives himself to his destined work. Wickliff's writings burnt in Bohemia. the first time brought forward in Bohemia. Less daring than Wickliff, John Huss admitted in principle the greater part of the dis tinctive dogmas of the Roman Church, which the former rejected. In certain ones, such as the efficacy of prayers for the dead, the worship of saints, auricular confession, and the power of the priests to give absolution and to excommunicate, he blamed the principle much less than the abuse. Upon the grand fundamental principle of the appeal to the Scriptures as the only infallible authority, Huss agreed perfectly with the English reformer, and this contained in itself the seeds of a complete revolution in the anti-scriptural church of Rome. He also agreed with him in the necessity of bringing back the clergy to discipline and morality, and this, in that corrupt age, arrayed against him the whole priesthood as a body. § 25.-Huss had to encounter a severe conflict with himself, before he could venture to declare himself openly as the reformer of the abuses of the church and the clergy. Referring to a passage in Ezekiel viii. 8, 9, “And when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And the Lord said unto me, Go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here," he exclaims, "I also, I, have been raised up by God to dig in the wall, in order that the multiplied abominations of the holy place may be laid open. It has pleased the Lord to draw me forth from the place where I was, like a brand from the burning. Unhappy slave of my passions as I was, it was necessary that God himself should rescue me, like Lot from the burning of Sodom; and I have obeyed the voice which said to me, Dig in the wall. . . . . I next beheld a door, and that door was the Holy Scriptures, through which I contemplated the abominations of the monks and the priests, laid open before me and represented under divers emblems. Never did the Jews and Pagans commit such horrible sins in presence of Jesus Christ, as those bad Christians and hypocritical priests commit every day in the midst of the Church." From that time (about 1407), Huss gave himself to what he conceived his destined work, grappling with the whole body of the clergy, and boldly reproving their scandalous and immoral lives, from the obscure curate or monk, to the luxurious cardinals and rival pontiffs of a corrupt and apostate church. § 26. On the 20th December, 1409, pope Alexander V. issued his bull against the doctrines and writings of Wickliff, forbidding all to preach or teach his doctrines in private chapels or any places whatever. In obedience to this bull, the archbishop of Prague and primate of Bohemia caused upwards of two hundred volumes, beautifully written and richly ornamented, to be burned without any further proceedings, which act gave birth to very formidable resentments. The price of books, which at that period were all manuscripts, was, before the invention of printing, elevated in proportion to their rarity, and their destruction almost always caused * Hist. et Monument. J. Hus., p. 503. + Supra ducenta volumina fuisse traduntur. (Eneas Sylvius, Hist. Boh., p. 69.) The Pope lays an interdict on the city of Prague, on account of Huss. Huss's pions letters. a serious loss to the possessors. A great number of the books burned by the Archbishop belonged to members of the University of Prague. That dignitary had therefore violated their privileges, and John Huss undertook their defence, being doubly offended by this act of episcopal despotism, both in his authority as rector, and in his esteem for Wickliff. Upon the accession of pope John XXIII. in 1410, that violent and vicious pontiff immediately summoned the Bohemian reformer to appear before his court at Bologne, and upon Huss refusing to comply with the summons, he was excommunicated, the city of Prague laid under an interdict, and the priests forbidden to perform the rites of baptism or burial, so long as John Huss continued in the city. Against this sentence, Huss appealed from the pretended vicar of God to the tribunal of God himself. "Our Lord Jesus Christ," said he, "real God and real man, when encompassed by pontiffs, scribes, pharisees, and priests, at once his judges and accusers, gave his disciples the admirable example of submitting their cause to the omniscient and omnipotent God. In pursuance of this holy example, I now appeal to God, seeing that I am oppressed by an unjust sentence, and by the pretended excommunication of the pontiff's scribes, pharisees, and judges seated in the chair of Moses,-I, John Huss, present this my appeal to Jesus Christ, my Master and my Judge, who knows and protects the just cause of the humblest of men." § 27.-The persecuted reformer, though enjoying the protection of the royal family, chose to retire for the present to his native village, from whence he wrote to his spiritual children to explain to them the cause of his retirement, in the following pious and affecting strain. "Learn, beloved," says he, "that if I have withdrawn from the midst of you, it is to follow the precept and example of Jesus Christ, in order not to give room to the ill-minded to draw on themselves eternal condemnation, and in order not to be to the pious a cause of affliction and persecution. I have retired also through an apprehension that impious priests might continue for a longer time to prohibit the preaching of the Word of God amongst you; but I have not quitted you to deny the divine truth, for which, with God's assistance, I am willing to die."* In another of these admirable letters, he exhorts them not to be cast down by terror, if the Lord should try some among them. Then alluding to the example of Jesus, he says: "He came to the aid of us miserable sinners, supporting hunger, thirst, cold, heat, watching and fatigue; when giving us his Divine instructions, he suffered weighty sorrows and grave insults from the priests and scribes, to such a point that they called him a blasphemer, and declared that he had a devil; asserting that he, whom they had excommunicated as a heretic, and whom they had driven from their city and crucified as an accursed one, could not be God. If, then, Christ had to support such thingshe, who cured all kinds of diseases by his mere word, without any * Hist. et Monum. Hus., t. i., p. 117. His noble and illustrious friend, Jerome of Prague His presentiment of martyrdom. recompense on earth-who drove out devils, raised the dead, and taught God's holy word-who did no harm to any one, who committed no sin, and who suffered every indignity from the priests, simply because he laid open their wickedness-why should we be astonished, in the present day, that the ministers of anti-Christ, who are far more covetous, more debauched, more cruel, and more cunning, than the Pharisees, should persecute the servants of Godoverwhelm them with indignity, curse, excommunicate, imprison, and kill them?" In some of his letters, written about the same time, Huss manifests a vague presentiment of martyrdom. It is thus, that, writing to the new rector of the University of Prague, he says: "I know well that, if I persevere in what is just, no evil, whatever it may be, will be able to turn me from the paths of truth. If I desire to live piously in Christ, it is necessary for me to suffer for his name. What are to me the riches of the age! What the indignities, which, endured with humility, prove, purify, and illuminate, the children of God! What, in fact, is death, should I be torn from this wretched existence! He who loses it here below, triumphs over death itself, and finds the real life. As for me, I have no desire to live in this corrupt age:-I shall, I trust, affront death itself, it the mercy of the Lord comes to my aid." Huss goes on to draw an energetic picture of the licentiousness of the clergy, in which body he sees anti-Christ; and then, giving free vent to his grief, he exclaims: "Wo, then, to me, if I do not preach against an abomination of the kind! Wo to me if I do not lament, if I do not write!... Already the great eagle takes its flight, and cries, 'Wo! wo! to the inhabiters of the earth!'"* § 28.-Amidst all the dangers and trials, however, to which the godly Huss was exposed, there were many of his friends who, in the face of danger, remained faithful to the doctrine he had taught them and to their beloved teacher. But amongst them all, the most illustrious was he whose name has been handed down to posterity, inseparable from his own-Jerome of Prague, doctor of theology. This learned and eloquent doctor was one of the most eminent men of his time. He had studied at Oxford, and had defended most brilliant theses at Paris against Gerson, as well as the most celebrated universities of Europe. Even before his return to Bohemia, he had signalized himself by a strong opposition to the church of Rome. He was thrown into prison at Vienna, as a favorer of Wickliff; and, being set at liberty at the request of the University of Prague, he came to join John Huss in this city. In a short time, he guarded no measures with respect to the Pope and the cardinals: and, amongst other problems, he openly proposed the following:— Whether the Pope possessed more power than another priest-and whether the bread in the Eucharist, or the body of Christ, possessed more virtue in the mass of the Roman pontiff, than in that of any * Hist. et Mon. Hus., Epist. iv., t. i., p. 118. |