Pope, for having approved of the bargain, has received money from the two parties. * * If God had said to the members of this Council, “Let him amongst you who is without sin pronounce the sentence of Pope John,” undoubtedly they would have withdrawn one after the other. Why did they formerly bend their knees before him? Why did they kiss his feet? Why did they term him most holy, when they saw in him a homicide, a heretic, and a hardened sinner? For in this manner did they already speak of him in public. Why did the Cardinals elect him Pope, knowing that he had caused the death of his predecessor?[1] Why did they suffer him, since his accession to that office, to traffic in holy things? Do they not form his Council, to remind him of what is just? and are they not as much to blame as he for these crimes, since they tolerated in him vices which were common to them all? Why did no one dare resist him before his flight from Constance? They all feared him then, as their very holy father; but when, with the permission of God, the secular power laid hold of him, then they conspired and resolved that he should not escape death.
Truly, already have the malice, abomination, and turpitude of antichrist been revealed in the Pope and other members of this Council. The faithful servants of God may now understand these words of the Saviour,
- ↑ See the Reformers before the Reformation, vol. i., book i.
