Page:Letters of John Huss Written During His Exile and Imprisonment.djvu/193

 

LETTER XLI.^[1]

 

TO JOHN CARDINAL.

 

[John Huss replies to the Father, that is to say, to the Cardinal,^[2] clearly establishing, that it is better to die for the truth than to depart from it, though only a nail’s breadth, even under the false pretext of the good of the Church,]

 

May the Almighty God, sovereignly good and wise,

 

1. Hist. et Monum. Johann. Huss, Epist. xxxix.
2. Luther erroneously believed that the person whom John Huss only designates under the name of Father, for fear of compromising him, was the Cardinal of Osti. J. Lenfant has clearly demonstrated that the person, to whom John Huss gives this name, was a monk called John Cardinal. (See the History of the Council of Constance, book iii.)

   The following is the form of revocation he invited John Huss to sign, and which Luther has inserted in the collection of John Huss’s letters, under the number xxxviii.

   “I, the undersigned, besides the protest which I have already made, and do here repeat, again protest, that although many things which I have never thought of have been imputed to me; nevertheless, for all the things which I am accused of, whether extracted from my works, or obtained from the deposition of witnesses, I humbly submit myself to the mercy, judgment, explanation, and correction of the Holy Coun-