be the body of the elect. For three hundred years or more after Christ there were no cardinals, and if the church could exist and get along well without them then, it could get along without them always, and Christ could well re-establish the purity of the primitive church without cardinals and pope. If the pope is the head of the Roman Church and the cardinals the body, then they in themselves form the entire Roman Church, as the human body together with the head constitutes the whole man.
(2) It sets aside the idea that pope, prelates and priests are true pope, prelates and priests by virtue of their office and ordination in the absence of purity and humility of life. Judas had the office and the ordination of an apostle, but was not a true apostle. They might not be of the elect and, in that case, they are not of the church. Exactly who is of the elect, and so of the church, cannot be certainly known except by revelation. The standard by which we must judge pope, prelates and priests is their conduct and works. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” To this text Huss went back again and again.
(3) Huss’s definition set aside the idea that church government is necessarily bound up with prelates and popes. On the contrary, spiritual authority is vested in the church—the body of the elect. The Apostle Peter received the keys as a representative of the church, or, to use Huss’s own words: “The church received the keys in the person of St. Peter.” All the Apostles were commissioned equally to feed and govern the church. Thomas went to India—not by Peter’s appointment. John was sent equally with Peter to Samaria. James presided at the synod of Jerusalem. The thirteen Apostles were thirteen prelates or princes—principes—invested with equal authority in all the earth. So are their successors, but only so far as they truly follow in the Apostles’ steps in their teachings and conduct. To the church, that is, the body of the elect, against which the gates of hell will
