Martyrs Mirror

Touching the Articles of Faith Which John Huss Had Derived from the Writings of John Wickliffe.

Sebastian Franck writes as follows: “John Huss, a disciple and fellow believer of this Wickliffe, received the Wickliffite doctrine from Jerome of Prague, who carried it with him from England to Bohemia as a sacred treasure.”

Continuing, he relates the articles which John Huss had learned and adopted from Wickliffe’s writings.

1. “That the Roman church has no right to divide the sacrament, and has wrongfully deprived the laity of one form.

2. “That the Roman bishop is just like other (ordinary) bishops.

3. “That under all circumstances there is no purgatory.

4. “To pray for the dead is vain and unavailing, and is invented by the avarice of the priests.

5. “Images of God and the saints are not to be tolerated, and should be abolished.

6. “The wicked devils have invented the unspiritual mendicant orders.

7. “The priests ought to be poor, and live only from alms.

8. “Outward, auricular confession is altogether false and man’s invention. It is sufficient to confess one’s sins in the closet to God.

9. “The ceremonies and usages of the (Roman) church are vain things.

10. “Touching several things concerning the sacrament, etc.

11. “The time is uselessly consumed by the seven hours.191

12. “There is no merit in the fasts instituted by the church, and in many other errors.

13. “Men shall not swear in any wise. Hence he said to those who urged him vehemently to swear an oath: ‘I am afraid every way; if I swear, eternal death is my portion; but if I swear not, I cannot escape your hands; but it is better that I fall into your hands without sin than to sin in the sight of God.’ ”

Here we certainly clearly see that the doctrine of not swearing in any wise, was an article of his faith; and if it was the case that he was requested to abjure his faith or religion, he refused to abjure it, not only because he would not forsake his faith or religion, but also because he held that one ought not to swear at all, as the 13th article declares: “Men shall not swear in any wise,” that is, not at all. Seb. Fr. Chron., 3d part, fol. 105. Tract, van den Loop Werelt, fol. 100. Also P. J. Twisck, Chron., page 764. A.

NOTICE CONCERNING THE FOLLOWERS OF JOHN HUSS, WHO, ACCORDING TO THE ACCOUNTS OF JACOB MEHRNING, WERE VERY DIFFERENT FROM THEIR LEADER.

When in the fifteenth century, John Huss began to teach in Bohemia, and gained a great number of adherents, many Waldenses united with them; who rejoiced, and hoped that thereby the light of the Gospel, which, up to this time, had for so long a period been so abominably quenched and persecuted by the papists, would begin to shine more clearly, burn more vigorously, and proceed the more unobstructedly. But when, after the death of John Huss and Jerome of Prague, who had both been burnt by the papists, at Constance, on the Lake of Constance, contrary to the safe conduct granted by the Emperor, the Hussites in Bohemia, commenced an atrocious and bloody war against Emperor Sigismund and the German electors, and other princes, which they, after carrying it on for a long time, finally adjusted, and when said Hussites, as totally estranged from their teacher and leader, John Huss, united with the papists in many doctrinal points and church ceremonies, many of the Waldenses, who had at first joined the Hussites, found themselves shamefully deceived in their hope, and bethought themselves better, that is, according to the doctrine of the holy Gospel, to have nothing at all to do with such a bloody war. Again, they also began to protest against it. They also turned away from the Hussites, in the points of doctrine and church usages, and established a separate church, being afterwards called Taborites, Grubenheimer‍192 dwellers in caves, etc.

This greatly grieved the so-called Hussites, and they, therefore, through the instigation of M. John Rockenzahns and others, began to dreadfully hate and persecute, not only the old faithful Waldenses, who had never been united with them, but also these newer ones, who separated from them. Jac. Mehrn., Bapt. Hist., 2d part, from Lydius, in the Hist. of the Waldensibus.