saints and to overcome by the death of this body—the saints who, dying for the law of Christ, finally overcome that beast. For to these very ones the Saviour said, "Fear not them which kill the body," Matt. 10:28, and "In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world," John 16:33. Here Augustine, in his Com. on John [Nic. Fathers, 7: 393], says: "In whom do they have good cheer and overcome except in Him? For he would not have overcome the world if the world overcame his members. Hence the apostle says: 'Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory,' and adds, 'through our Lord Jesus Christ,' who said to his disciples, 'Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.'" Thus much Augustine. But they overcome the power of the dragon and the beast who have the power of predestination which is the chief of powers and of which John speaks: "To them gave he the power to become the sons of God," John 1:12. And to this power is added perfecting power, and that is the power which God gives to the blessed in the heavenly country to fully enjoy the Lord and every creature in Him.
Therefore, the true worshippers of Christ, wishing to obtain that power, ought to resist every assumed power which seeks to remove them from the imitation of Christ by force or craft, for, in thus resisting such power we do not resist the ordinance of God but the abuse of power. And such abuse, in respect to the power of the keys, the simoniacs[1]
- ↑ Huss constantly attacked the simony of the clergy and regarded his legal troubles as a result of these assaults. He wrote a special tract on the subject in Czech entitled, The Traffic in Holy Things, which he closed by exalting Christ as the only way, truth and life. In his de sex Erroribus, Mon., 1: 240–243, he also gave the subject elaborate treatment, quoting at length from the canon law and declaring that prelates guilty of it are in mortal sin, and so their acts invalid. He speaks there of the sale of baptisms, confirmations, chrism, the marrriage blessing, the mass and sepulture. Laymen also were guilty of it who abet or wink at the practise in their priests. He returned to this vice in almost all his writings. He speaks of Prague clerics selling consecrated oil at a higher price than common oil and charging thirty groschen for thirty masses, and says that if priests would attempt to say all the masses they as-
