Page 56 - 06 Huss and Jerome

the bread and the wine in the communion,

and the use of the mother tongue in divine

worship; the exclusion of the clergy from all

secular offices and authority; and, in cases of

crime, the jurisdiction of the civil courts over

clergy and laity alike. The papal authorities at

last “agreed that the four articles of the

Hussites should be accepted, but that the

right of explaining them, that is, of

determining their precise import, should

belong to the council—in other words, to the

pope and the emperor.”—Wylie, b. 3, ch. 18.

On this basis a treaty was entered into, and

Rome gained by dissimulation and fraud

what she had failed to gain by conflict; for,

placing her own interpretation upon the

Hussite articles, as upon the Bible, she could

pervert their meaning to suit her own

purposes.