do.[1] But they are at once put to confusion by the prohibition which follows: According to their works, do ye not.[2] God accordingly in Deut. xxiv. saith: Thou shalt do whatsoever the priests of the Levitical race shall teach thee, according to what I have commanded them.[3] Mark, the Lord willeth that the obedient man should only obey His commands. Also this passage in First Peter, chapter ii.: Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear. Further on, it saith: also to the froward;[4] inasmuch as[5] a man would no more think of obeying the froward than of obeying the devil.[6] Therefore both the will of God and Scripture teach that we only ought to obey our superiors in things lawful.
I based my case on these principles, when I preferred in the matter of preaching to obey God rather than the Pope, and the Archbishop and his other satraps[7] who act contrary to this word of Christ’s: Go ye into the whole world, etc.[8] I put my signature to this, that you may know how to meet the devil’s dogs.[9]
Monday, Urban’s Day, in Rogation week.
- ↑ Matt. xxiii. 3.
- ↑ Ib.
- ↑ Deut. xxiv. 8.
- ↑ 1 Pet. ii. 18.
- ↑ P.: sed absit; read with Mon.: quod absit.
- ↑ Hus had forgotten for the moment the retort that might have been made from Wyclif’s famous Deus debet obedire diabolo, with which he must have been familar as early as 1403.
- ↑ ‘Satraps’ is a favourite word with Wyclif for the higher clergy; cf. Dialogues 25 l. 20; 32 l. 22; 113 l. 33; Cruciata (Polem. Wks. ii. 620) et passim.
- ↑ Mark xvi. 15.
- ↑ Diaboli canibut—possibly some pun intended on Dominicani, as often in the writings of the times.
