Page:Letters of John Huss Written During His Exile and Imprisonment.djvu/148

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LETTER XXII.

same Paletz insists on its being destroyed; and in order to overwhelm me as much as possible, he has greeted me in a most dreadful manner, as I shall relate hereafter, with God’s permission.

With respect to what I ought to reply to the objections that may be brought against me, I rely on the Divine Saviour, to whom I have appealed—whom, in presence of the commissioners, I have chosen for my Judge and Advocate, declaring firmly, that “I selected for my advocate and judge the Lord Jesus, him who would soon judge us all.” I committed my cause to him, as he had confided his to his Father. It is he who has declared, as our doctoral lord of Bibrach remarks,—“Take no heed of what you shall say; for I will give you a wisdom and eloquence which your enemies will not be able to resist.”

Jerome has written:—“The Lord has said to us, Do not allow yourselves to be troubled; fear nothing; you shall march to the combat, but it is I who will fight; your mouth shall open, but it is I who will speak; you shall be betrayed by your relations, your friends, your brothers; and they will deliver you up to death. The injuries that we receive from the persons who are strangers to us are less cruel than others; our sufferings are so much the more bitter, that we expected more from those who inflicted them on us; for we suffer not only in our body, but also in our mind, from charity being destroyed.”