# De Ecclesia. The Church

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1915 translation of the 1413 treatise De ecclesia of one of the first Church reformers. The opinions on the catholic church which Hus expressed in this work played an important role in his trial at Constance, where he was condemned to death and burned at the stake.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE |
The church an article of faith—Meaning of church in Greek—In the New Testament—The church a mother—The dove of the Canticles—The strong woman of Proverbs—Not to be believed in as God.
The church triumphant, militant and dormant—The Apostles' Creed—Wherein the unity consists.
Parables of the net, etc.—The human body and the spiritual body—Essential parts of the body—Four kinds of persons related to the church—Predestinated according to present righteousness—Christ's other sheep.
Head by reason of his divinity and humanity—Head from the beginning—No reprobate a member of the church—Present goodness no proof of predestination—Tychonius—The word Christian.
Belief and faith—Parables of the marriage-supper. etc.—The least in the kingdom of heaven—Prelates may be reprobate—Clergy and church used interchangeably—Paying tithes to the clergy for their works'sake—The nominal and the real church.
Devil the head of the reprobate—Sin continues in the reprobate but disjoins them—Christ head of the world as well as of the predestinate.
Matt. 16:18—The church a mixed body—Particular churches—Reasons for calling the Roman church the church.
Three meanings of faith—Faith formed in love—Faith and vision—Heb. 11:1—Faith and hope—Fallibility of the pope—Infallibility of the Scriptures.
Christ and not Peter the rock—Paul on the church's foundation—Texts showing Christ to be the rock—Augustine on the rock—Patriarchs looked forward not to Peter—The apostles the foundations of the church—Peter captain and primate—Peter's virtues—The priest makes the chair, not the chair the priest—Christ the way, the truth, the life.
Spiritual and civil power—Power of the keys—Penance—Forgivenes granted only by him sinned against—How far the priest binds and looses—Things Peter could not loose—Lazarus loosed—Binding and loosing belong to all the apostles.
Claiming the power of Christ and not following him—The devil the worst of sophists—Christ came to minister—Fictitious clerical authority—Christ's true followers—Simoniac priests—The contention of the eight doctors.
Belief in Christ alone of necessitz to salvation—Christ the eternal hight priest—Gregory I's letter on the papal prerogative—Assumptions and ostentation of modern pontiffs.
The alleged successors of Peter and the apostles—Unlettered popes—The papissa Joan—heretic popes—Constantine's donation—Pope and cardinals not necessarily successors of the apostles—The pope may be the head of the Roman church if his life is worthy—If he is predestinate.
Cardinals not the body of Christ—Not all the predestinate—Prelates often do not seek the things of Christ—The name does not make the bishop—The pope's display—Kissing the pope's feet—Prelates to be tested by their works.
Unworthy prelates—Duties of Christ's apostles—Ambrose, Augustine, etc., true vicars of Christ—Constanine's donation—Lewis's grant to Pascal—No such grant from Christ—Original identity of bishops and presbyters—Gregory XII condemned by the cardinals—The church at first without a pope—The two orders of bishop and deacon—The clergy discerned by their works.
Pope and cardinals as judges—Jerome on the Roman see—Christ falsely condemned by statute law—Popes to be disobeyed if their judgments are contrary to the truth—Christ did not pronounce civil judgments—Nor put to death—Old Testament examples not to be followed—The sanguinary corollary—The abomination of desolation—Cases of strife over th papacy—Wicked popes—The Avignon schism—Constantine's donation announced by an angel, bad or good.
Religious superiors not always to be obeyed—Christ's obedience to a superior—To an inferior—Obedience of the greater to the less—Of an equal to an equal—Of the less to the greater—Obedience only virtuous as it is of God—Commands and counsels—Ecclesiastical laws not comanded in Scripture.
The true priest does good works—Preaching—Pope is apostolic when he follows the apostles—Moses' seat was Moses' authority—Augustine on the apostolic see—Papal commands to be tested—Huss's appeal to Christ—Pope may err—Solemn responsibility of priests who kill the sheep—Augustine on cathedras—Marcellus made mistakes—The primacy of Antioch and Rome.
The absolutely good always to be obeyed—Commands that are intermediate—Neutrality impossible where moral action is concerned—Superiors to be obeyed always when they teach Christ's commandments—St. Paul's example—Bernard on the duty of obedience—Clerics and laics to scrutinize the commands of superiors—No blind obedience.
"Prelates to be obeyed in all things"—Ecxommunication only for mortal sin—In matters intermediate the church sometimes to be disobeyed—Commands to be weighed by the reason—Ecclesiastical burdens hard to be borne—Christ's yoke easy—The Christian to follow Christ's commands—Capable priests ought to preach as much as the rich to give alms.
Popes and prelates compared to the scribes and Pharisees—Divine councels—Circumstances modifying commands—Huss's reasons for not going to Rome—Commands repugnant to reason—Christ the first exemplar to be followed—Deaths of John, Martin, and Stafcon—An inferior may rebuke a superior—Objections from the canon law against rebuking a pope—Inferiors should examine commands before they obey them.
"A censure from the pope not to be questioned"—Pilate's treatment of the censure of Christ—Excommunication, suspension, interdict—Excommunication does not hurt the righteous—God must first excommunicate—The wicked already excommunicated from the body of the righteous.
Suspension must be from God to be valid–Eli and his sons–Old Testament priests less guilty than New Testament priests–Prelates more guilty than the people if they do not warn the people–Not to reprove is to consent to sin–The interdict–Christ imposed none–Unjust to the innocent community–Reasons for the interdict on Prague–The curia's method–Boniface VIII's bull–"The customs of the fathers"–The apostles did not fulminate interdicts–Condemnation of the XLV Wyclifite Articles–The effect.
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