The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe/Volume 3/Certain other Articles gathered out of Wickliff's Books by his Adversaries, to the Number of Forty-five, exhibited to the Council of Constance after his Death, and in the same Council condemned
25. All such as be hired for temporal living to pray for others, offend, and sin of simony.
26. The prayer of a reprobate prevaileth for no man.
27. All things happen from absolute necessity.[1]
28. The confirmation of young persons, the ordination of the clergy, and the consecration of places, be reserved to the pope and prelates, from a desire of temporal lucre and honour.[2]
29. Graduations and doctorships in universities and colleges as they be used, conduce nothing to the church.
30. The excommunication of the pope and his prelates is not to be feared, because it is the censure of Antichrist.
31. Such as found and build monasteries, do offend and sin, and all such as enter into the same, be members of the devil.
32. To enrich the clergy is against the rule of Christ.
33. Silvester the pope, and Constantine the emperor, erred in enriching the church.
34. A deacon or a priest may preach the word of God without the authority of the apostolic see or that of a bishop.[3]
35. Such as enter into orders, or religion monastical, are thereby unable to keep God's commandments, and also to attain to the kingdom of heaven, except they return from the same.
36. The pope with all his clergy, having those great possessions which they have, be heretics in so having; and the secular powers in so suffering them do not well.
37. The church of Rome is the synagogue of Satan; nor is the pope immediately the vicar of Christ and of the apostles.
38. The letters decretal be apocryphal, and seduce from the faith of Christ; and the clergy that study them be fools.
39. The emperor and secular lords be seduced by the devil, when they enrich the church with temporal goods.
40. It is not necessary to salvation to believe the church of Rome to be supreme head over all churches.
41. It is infatuation to believe in the indulgences of the pope.
42. All oaths which be made for any contract or civil bargain betwixt man and man, be unlawful.
43. Augustine, Benedict, Bernard, with all such as have been patrons of private religion, except they have repented, with such also as have entered into the same, be in a damnable state, and so from the pope to the lowest novices, they be altogether heretics.
44. All private rehgions whatsoever, indiscriminately introduced, are not from Christ.[4]
45. That all in the order of mendicants be heretics, and all who give them alms are excommunicate.
Besides these articles, to the number of forty-five, condemned, as is said, by the council of Constance, other articles also I find diversely collected, or rather wrested out of the books and writings of Wickliff; some by William Woodford, and some by Walden, friar Tissington, and others, whom they, in their liooks, have impugned rather than confuted; in the number of which writers William Woodford especially findeth out these articles, and writeth against the same, to the number of eighteen, as hereunder follow.
- ↑ This article, omitted in all the English editions of Foxe, is here restored to its place from the Latin edition of 1559, p. 36. "Omnia de necessitate absolute eveniunt." To this our author adjoins a side note; "Et hic forte calumnia." The reader will indeed find the above article amongst those which follow, collected by William Woodford, but unless it is retained here with articles 44 and 45, inserted from the Latin edition, the number mentioned in the heading would be contradicted by the text, and the frequent and important references to the articles would be incorrect. The variations which occur in these copies of the conclusions of Wickliff are accounted for in the following extract from the first edition of the Acts and Monuments, p. 107. " As concerning John Wickliff's conclusions which were condemned in the council of the earthquake, we have spoken before. Now, forasmuch as the slander of the adversaries doth further move me, it remaineth that we gather the articles exhibited and condemned in the council of Constance; albeit that I do not find all men to accord and agree, neither in the order, neither in the number of them. For William Widford [Woodford] in his Impugnation which he dedicated unto Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, numbereth them after one sort, and John Huss after another."
"And, again, the copy of Cologne, which here we do follow, doth differ from them both, as the apology of John Huss doth declare, where the 15, 16, 17 articles are placed after another order than they be set forth in other books, as it shall appear by his defence, which we will annex immediately upon the articles, forasmuch as it is most evident that there were 45 articles put up unto the council of Constance, and in the catalogue of Cologne is found but 44 articles."—Ed.
- ↑ As in the English editions of Foxe this article is either incorrectly translated, or is copied from Huss, Woodford, or others, the clause, as it appears in the Latin edition, p. 26, is subjoined, and retained, in English, in the text above.—Ed.
"Confirmatio juvenum, clericorum ordinatio, locorum consecratio, reserventur papæ; et episopis, propter cupiditatem lucri temporalis et honoris."— Ed.
- ↑ The words "or that of a bishop" have been added from the Latin; where is a note also, "De pontificiis sentit episcopis."—Ed.
- ↑ This article is only found in the Latin edition, p. 27.—"Omnes religiones privatæ, indifferenter introductæ, non sunt à Christo."—Ed.
- ↑ See article 14, in Latin edition, p. 26.—Ed.