In order to render more prudent, and to instruct, by means of the tyrannical judgments of the Council of Constance, all theologians that may be hereafter called to sit in a council of the Roman Church. Should any man read these letters, or hear them read, being, at the same time, in possession of a sound intelligence, and, in the face of God, having a regard for his own conscience, he will not, I am convinced, hesitate to allow that John Huss was endowed with the precious gifts of the Holy Spirit. Observe, in fact, how firmly he clung, in his writings and his words, to the doctrines of Christ; with what courage he struggled against the agonies of death; with what patience and humility he suffered every indignity; and with what greatness of soul he at last confronted a cruel death in defence of the truth;--doing all these things alone and unaided, before an imposing assembly of the most powerful and eminent men, like a lamb in the midst of wolves and lions. If such a man is to be regarded as a heretic, no person under the sun can be looked on as a true Christian. By what fruits, then, shall we recognise the truth, if it is not manifest by those with which John Huss was so richly adorned? The greatest crime of John Huss was his having declared that a man of impious life was not the head of the universal Church: he allowed him to be the chief of a particular church, but not of the universal one; just the same as a minister of the word, whose life is criminal, still remains minister according to external appearance, although he is not, on that account, a member of the saints in his church. In a similar manner, John Huss denied that an impious and flagitious pontiff was a worthy one, although seated on the throne of the Church; it is as if we should declare that Judas, being both traitor and robber, was not an honest man, although he had been called to the functions of an apostle. Every effort, in fact, was made to prevail on John Huss to admit that a criminal pope ought to be regarded as a saint, and was infallible; that his words and acts were alike holy, and ought to be received and respected as so many articles of faith. All the men of the Council of Constance, wise as they were considered, would have lent a favourable ear to such assertions,--they who, when they had dethroned three culpable pontiffs, did not allow to any one the right of condemning them to the flames! But when John Huss said the same things, they dragged him at once to the stake!