Roman Church, and openly subjects himself to the reproach addressed to him by one of the Catholic writers, who judged him most impartially. “It is greatly to be lamented,” says the writer alluded to, “that such a man should have so frightful a destiny, and so bitter a death,—he, who glowed with so ardent a love for Christ and his doctrine,—who shone, by the integrity of his life, the sincerity of his heart, the ardour of his mind, his eloquence, and other precious gifts, to so high a degree, that he might have become an illustrious Reformer, if, after the example of some very eminent men, such as Gerson, d’Ailly, or Clémangis, he had devoted his talents to the work of reform in the Church itself, and not out of its bosom.”[1]
This reproach is best refuted by referring to John Huss’s life, and the history of his time. Both form the subject of the work, which this one completes, and to which the reader has been often referred.[2] It will be there seen that the reform of abuses could not be accomplished by
- ↑ Maxime quidem dolendum esse ingenue confitemur quod tristissimam sortem necemque acerbissimam vir ille perpessus est, qui magno exarsit Christi reique christianæ amore, vitæ integritate voluntate sincera, maximo animi ardore, præstantissima concionandi facultate aliisque virtutibus mire excelluit, ita ut reformator extitisset egregius si cum æqualibus viris præclarissimis, Gersonio, Petro ab Alliaco, Nicolao Clemangis ea qua potuit ac debuit ratione intra, non extra Ecclesiæ fines, reformandæ Ecclesiæ operam novasset. Dissert. hist. dogmat. Cappenberg.
- ↑ The Reformers before the Reformation.
