Huss at Constance by S. N. H.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 11, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 23.

Huss at Constance.

By S. N. H.

(Continued.)

Huss was not inactive during his imprisonment and trial. His letters, which were numerous, written at this time, breathed the same spirit of those of Paul when a prisoner at Rome. He writes to John de Chlum, “The Lord delivered Jonah from the whale’s belly, Daniel from the lions’ den, the three men from the fiery furnace, and he can deliver me too if it please him, for the glory of his name and the preaching of his word; but if the death comes which is precious in the eyes of the Lord, then let the name of the Lord be praised.” To another he writes, “And by the grace of God my return to Prague is a thing not impossible still I have no desire for it unless it be according to the will of God in Heaven.”

Huss was ever cheered and sustained by a kind of prophetic consciousness that whatever might happen to himself, truth would go on revealing itself ever more gloriously and mightily, and eventually triumph. He writes, “I hope that what I have spoken in secret will be proclaimed on the house-tops.” One night he dreamed that the enemies had destroyed all the pictures of Christ on the walls of Bethlehem chapel. The next day he beheld many painters who were busy drawing more numerous and more beautiful pictures than those which had been defaced. As he gazed with rapture, the painters seemed to say, “Now let the bishops and priests come and destroy these pictures;” and as the multitude of the people rejoiced over it, he rejoiced with them, and amidst the laughter he awoke. He wrote to his friends the dream and was invited in return to interpret it.

Some suggested to him that he should not put too much stress upon dreams; but Huss in reply said, “Though the goose is now brought down by sickness, and may next be laid as a sacrifice on the altar, yet will she hereafter laugh, and hold them in derision who are destroyers of Christ’s image.” Huss returns a cheery answer to his friend whom he styles the doctor of Biberach. He says, “I have the hope that the life of Christ will be better transcribed by a greater number of better preachers than I am, to the joy of the people who love the life of Christ.” For many years after the removal of Huss, preachers of like faith and spirit occupied the pulpit of Bethlehem chapel. Two centuries later, Bethlehem chapel was still standing with the very pulpit in which Huss had preached. On the right hand of the pulpit was the picture of Jerome bound to the stake. In the center appeared Huss, the flames kindling around him, while his bed, books, etc., are cast into the fire. On the left is another picture of Huss, with the executioner pouring blazing oil upon his head. The chapel is not now in existence.

No effort was spared by Huss to secure his coveted audience before the whole council, with freedom to make a full statement and defense of his position. But this he never had the privilege of doing. His enemies feared the influence of his eloquence. And it is probable that with the class of hearers that was before him, could he have had the privilege of defending himself, the council would not have condemned him. There were ten noblemen of Bohemia, and the principal nobles of Moravia, who wrote to the emperor protesting against the execution of Huss. But Sigismund had not even the moral courage of Pilato when he openly declared the innocence of the Saviour. The influence thus brought to bear upon the emperor, although it had an effect, was not sufficient to enable him to publicly make an effort to rescue the reformer.

It is evident that Huss never fully embraced the doctrine of justification by faith as Luther did. He writes to his church at Prague, at this time, “I commend you to the merciful Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, and to the Son of the immaculate virgin Mary, who has redeemed us by his most bitter death, without all our merits, from eternal pains, from the thralldom of the devil, and from sin.” The members of the council instinctively felt that Huss was not one of them; that although claiming to belong to the church which they constituted, he had in fact abandoned it, and renounced its authority. The two leading principles which he had embraced were subversive of their whole jurisdiction in both its branches, spiritual and temporal. The first and great authority with him was the Holy Scriptures; this struck at the foundation of the hierarchy; and as regards their temporal power, he undermined it by his doctrine touching ecclesiastical revenues and possessions. From these two positions neither sophistry nor threats could make him swerve.

In the judgment of the council he was in rebellion. He had transferred his allegiance from the church to God, speaking through his word. This was his great crime. It mattered little in the eyes of the assembled Fathers that he still shared in some of their common beliefs; he had broken the great bond of submission; he had become the worst of all heretics; he had rent from his conscience the shackles of infallibility; and he must needs, in process of time, become a more avowed and dangerous heretic than he was at that moment, and accordingly the mind of the council was made up, John Huss must meet the doom of the heretic. When the council arose, Huss was led out by his armed escort, and conducted back to prison. His trusty friend, John de Chlum, followed him, and, embracing him, bade him be of good cheer. “Oh, what a consolation to me, in the midst of my trials,” said Huss in one of his letters, “to see that excellent nobleman, John de Chlum, stretch out the hand to me, miserable heretic, languishing in chains, and already condemned by every one.”

Finally the crisis of the reformer’s career was reached. This was between the second and third, or last time, he appeared before the council. No effort was spared on the part of the emperor and others to get him to abjure his faith. At last the matter was brought to this point, would he submit himself to the council? “If the council should tell you that you have but one eye, you would be obliged to agree with the council.” “But as long as God keeps me in my senses I would not say such a thing, even though the whole world should require it; because I could not say it without wounding my conscience,” was Huss’s reply. This was as if the Fathers had said, “We shall say nothing of heresy, we specify no errors, only submit yourself implicitly to our authority as an infallible council. Burn this grain of incense on the altar in testimony of our corporate divinity. That is asking no great matter, surely.”

How many would have yielded? How many have yielded under similar circumstances and been lost! Had Huss bowed his head before that body of infallibility, he could never have lifted it up again before his own conscience, before his own countrymen, before his own Saviour. Like Samson, he would have been shorn of his strength. He would have escaped the stake which gave momentary suffering, but he would have missed the immortal crown that awaits the faithful. From that moment Huss had peace, deeper than he had ever before experienced. He writes to a friend, “I write this letter in prison, with my fettered hand, expecting my sentence of death to-morrow. . . . When with the assistance of Jesus Christ we shall meet again in the delicious peace of the future life, you will learn how mercifully God has shown himself towards me, how effectually he has supported me in my temptations and trials.”

S. N. H.