the avarice, the hypocrisy and the craft of Antichrist and his ministers, while they look with patience for the coming of the righteous Judge. I beseech you by the tender mercies of Jesus Christ to flee all evil-living priests, but to love those that are good according to their works; and as much as lieth in you, together with all the faithful, suffer not the barons and lords to oppress them: it was for this that God did set you over others. I imagine there will arise a great persecution in Bohemia against those who faithfully serve God, unless God lay bare His arm through the secular lords whom He hath enlightened by His gospel more fully than the lords spiritual. What madness to condemn as error the gospel of Christ and that epistle of Paul which he saith he received not of man but of Christ,[1] aye, and to condemn the very act of Christ with the acts of His holy apostles and the other saints! I mean the communion of the sacrament of the cup[2] of our Lord, instituted for all adult[3] believers. They actually call it an error that believing laymen should be permitted to drink of the Lord’s cup, and if any priest should give them the cup to drink, he is, forsooth, to be dubbed erroneous; and if he doth not cease the practice, he must be condemned as a heretic![4] St. Paul thus saith to all believers: As often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of our Lord until He
- ↑ Gal. i. 1.
- ↑ Cf. pp. 169, 177, 248.
- ↑ This word should be noted. The later Hussites in their enthusiasm for the Eucharist fell back upon the custom of infantile communion, and their demand in this matter formed one of the difficulties of the Council of Basel.
- ↑ See the Council’s decree (June 15, 1415) in Hardt, iv. 334.
