Trinity Covenant RCUS

Colorado Springs, Colorado

The deepening Conflict Between Huss and the Roman Church

1412c	Huss’s doctrine of the church This is review from lesson Two.	1. The Holy Catholic Church is the body or congregation of all the predestinate, the dead, the living and those yet to be. The Roman pontiff and the cardinals are not the Church. The Church can exist without cardinals and a pope, and in fact for hundreds of years there were no cardinals. 2. Christ Himself is the Rock, and the Church is founded on him by virtue of predestination. In view of Peter’s clear and positive confession, "the Rock—Petra — said to Peter—Petro — ’I say unto thee, Thou art Peter, that is, a confessor of the true Rock which Rock I am.’ And upon the Rock, that is, myself, I will build this Church." 3. The Roman bishop, he said, was on an equality with other bishops until Constantine made him pope. It was then that he began to usurp authority. Through ignorance and the love of money the pope may err, and has erred, and to rebel against an erring pope is to obey Christ. 4. No papal excommunication may be an impediment to doing what Christ did and taught to be done. 5. The power to forgive sins belongs to no mortal man anymore than it belonged to the priest to whom Christ sent the lepers. The lepers were cleansed before they reached the priest. Indeed, many popes who conceded the most ample indulgences were themselves damned. 6. In denying the infallibility of the pope and of the Church visible, and in setting aside the sacerdotal power of the priesthood to open and shut the kingdom of heaven, Huss broke with the accepted theory of Western Christendom; he committed the unpardonable sin of the Middle Ages. 7. He unashamedly took ideas, even whole paragraphs from Wycliffe. He did not credit Wycliffe because Wycliffe’s writing had been condemned.
	The Six Errors. Written by Huss, posted at the Bethlehem Church	1. Transubstantiation: The arrogance of priests claiming to create the body of God, creating their creator. 2. The required confession: “I believe in the Pope and the saint,” when men were called to believe in God only. 3. The priestly pretension to remit the guilt and punishment of sin. 4. The requirement for implicit obedience required by all ecclesiastical superiors to all their commands. 5. The refusal to see the difference between a valid excommunication and one that was not so. 6. Simony. Huss believed that there was scarcely a priest who was not guilty.
	Against Pope John XXIII	1. Pope John XXIII had called for a crusade against Laudislaus, King of Hungary who had dared support Pope Gregory XII [See Great Schism]. He ordered “all emperors, kings, princes, cardinals, and men of whatever degree, by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, to take up arms against Laudislaus, and utterly to exterminate him and his supporters; and he promised to all who should join the crusade, or who should preach it, or collect funds for its support, the pardon of all their sins, and immediate admission into Paradise should they die in the war – in short, the same indulgences which were accorded to those who bore arms for the conquest of the Holy Land.” 2. Huss claimed that if the disciples were forbidden to defend Christ Himself with the sword, how could His vicar claim the right to war and murder. 3. Huss preached against indulgences, claiming that God Himself was the only One who could forgive sins. The priest should only forgive what Christ has forgiven. “If the Pope uses his power according to God’s commands, he cannot resisted without resisting God himself; but if he abuses his power by enjoining what is contrary to the Divine law, then it is a duty to resist him as should be done to the pale horse of the Apocalypse, to the dragon, to the beast, and to the Leviathan.”
	Against Superstition	1. “They array the bones [of the saints] with silk and gold and silver, and lodge them magnificently; but they refuse clothing and hospitality to the poor members of Jesus Christ who are amongst us, at whose expense they feed to repletion, and drink till they are intoxicated. 2. Huss ridiculed relics, bowing before images, worshipping the dead. He called monks “members of antichrist.” 3. The crusade of John XXIII divided Bohemia, plunging the land into civil war and bloodshed; the rulers supported the Pope , the people sided with Huss. 4. Huss: “"If the goose" (his name in the Bohemian language signifies goose), "which is but a timid bird, and cannot fly very high, has been able to burst its bonds, there will come afterwards an eagle, which will soar high into the air and draw to it all the other birds." So he wrote, adding, "It is in the nature of truth, that the more we obscure it the brighter will it become."
Next week we will examine the proceedings of the Council of Constance, which had been called [the third for this reason] to try to heal the Great Schism. They also decided to burn Huss as a sacrifice to their gods of unity and despotic power. It is the blood of the martyrs that so dedicates the altars of antichrist.