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But today we're going to continue on with Jan Hus or Jan the Goose. And we left off last time. I'll just try to very quickly run through to catch everyone up. Of course, Hus, as we talked about, pretty much adopted whole hog, the teachings of John Wycliffe. And, of course, you know, he is based in Prague.

He lay for a while there preached at the Church of Bethlehem. He's rector of the university, which basically means he's running the University of Prague there as well. And he, of course, believed the church was composed of the universal priesthood of believers. Sounds downright baptistic there. And that Christ alone was his head.

He's more of a preacher than a theologian. And he didn't fully accept Wycliffe's views on transubstantiation. But very, very similar to Wycliffe. His problem with transubstantiation, or actually I should just back up to say the Lord's Supper, was that, of course, I think I explained last time, it was the practice of the Catholic Church at that time to withhold the wine from the laity, the ordinary folks.

Like if we had the Lord's Supper back in those days, you would only get to eat the bread. You would not be able to partake of the wine. Only the priests and the clergy could partake. Of the wine. And so he argued, of course, he is more practical in that he felt all should partake of both the wine and the bread.

Eutroquis is, I think, the word for it. And you go back to Wycliffe, I would just like to point out that Wycliffe's view on the bread and the wine or transubstantiation. Remember, transubstantiation as a church doctrine was relatively new. For a thousand years, the church did not practice transubstantiation.

And Wycliffe, when he comes along, I was reading a tract by Wycliffe just last night, and Wycliffe's writing was very powerful. I mean, I was be moved by reading the tract myself. But what he really took issue with was how the church was making the wine and the bread almost, in his view, an idol, that people were literally worshiping the bread and the wine, and he felt the focus should be worship on Christ and not these elements.

And he also, kind of interesting, took the view that one of his problems with saying, you know, when the priest does a blessing, it literally becomes the blood, literally becomes the body, is that he says Christ is not made by anyone. You know, that Christ is unmade. You know, he is God.

And so that's another reason he had a real strong. Issue, and so Wycliffe said the bread remains bread, and the wine remains wine, and we do this in remembrance of him. Okay, so going on, if I got turned on, let's see. So, all right, so you got remember also as a background, you got the great schism going on, and Tom was discussing with me.

He's point out, I should point out to you, this is another great schism. The first great schism, who knows what that was? Division within the church. It goes back to the division between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic. That's the first great schism. And then, this schism, of course, is the great papal schism.

I guess that'd be a more accurate way to put it. When you, you know, you have first two popes, and we're going to see today again, you're going to wind up with three popes, and then finally, the Council of Constance will get it back to one pope again.

So, you have that as a backdrop, and who also had a huge problem with the sale of indulgences. Now, does that remind you of somebody? 100 years later, they still got the same problem. You know, the cell indulgences is being greatly abused. But he was very upset about a particular cell of indulgences where one of these three popes called a crusade against.

Another pope and was trying to raise huge amounts of money by selling indulgences, you know. And he was particularly outraged that you're having a crusade one group of Christians against another group of Christians, which he thought was outrageous, which it was. So, anyway, so he calls for reforms.

And, of course, I mentioned that the king of Bohemia at this time is good King Winceslaus, you know, from the Christmas Carol, but he wasn't that good of a king. In fact, he kind of is going to betray Hus on several occasions. And his brother, it turns out to be even worse, which is Sigismund, who's the Holy Roman Emperor.

Actually, at this point, he's not technically the Holy Roman Emperor yet, but he's about to be. And it is Sigismund who later does become officially Holy Roman Emperor. The problem was he was called king of Germany, not Holy Roman yet, because Holy Roman Emperor has to be crowned by the Pope, Holy Roman Emperor.

And the problem was they couldn't figure out which pope to crown him. You know, they, at this point, have three popes. And so that, and he wants to be Holy Rom Emperor. So that's going to cause him to call for the Council of Constance to solve this great papal schism.

And to solve it, you know, you also have got to, you know, tamp down what was viewed as heresies, and Hus is considered to be a heretic. And so he invites Hus to go to the Council of Constance. I think that's where we left off last time, right?

And he promises Hus safe conduct. Now, what does that mean? Just go, we're just going to talk. We promise we're not going to arrest you, you know. And, you know, just come talk, and you have my, you know, imperial protection, right? And so Hus decides to go to the Council of Constance.

Remember, the first and priority of the Council of Constance is not Hus. What is it? To end the Great Schism. All right. And they will do that. Ultimately. You know, they'll get rid of the three popes and they will come up with one pope, and that will be Martin V, who's yet a different pope.

And Martin V will, you know, be the one and only pope, and the great schism comes to an end. But the Ginny's kind of been let out of the bottle here, and the church has suffered greatly, the Roman Catholic Church is in terms of prestige, having the scandalous situation of the three popes each excommunicating the other.

Okay, so you got he goes to the Council of Constance, and he continues to preach. I think that's one of the things where he ticked him off while he's there at Constance. And so they arrest him, they cast him in prison, horrible, horrible. Horrible conditions on purpose, you know, vermin, you know, all kinds of, he just gets in very bad health because they delay, you know, he's there for months in prison.

Finally, they call him out. They do allow him to try to defend his position, and of course, each time they do not accept what he has to say, and he's ultimately going to be condemned, and of course, he'll be taken and he'll be burned at the stake. July the 6th, July.

Same month we're in now, 1415. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, we're in June. Okay, we're headed there. All right, so this, I think this little quote by Hus is pretty good. Seek the truth, listen to the truth, teach the truth, love the truth, abide by the truth, and defend the truth unto death.

And he lived up to that, most definitely. All right, so now upon his burning, it's said that he shouted out, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, have mercy upon me. And the Catholic Church then gathered up his ashes, fearful, you know, like with John Wycliffe, they burned his bones, that people would make relics out of his ashes, which, of course, the Hussains.

Sites would never do because they were against such things as relics and things of that nature. So, unlike Wycliffe, though, of course, you know, Wycliffe died a peaceful death. He's not going to stand trial until after he's dead, and then his bones will be burned. Hus, of course, his situation is quite different.

Prior to his going to Constance, he had traveled the length and breadth of Bohemia preaching, and he had developed a huge following amongst the masses of the Czech people. And when they found out what had been done to Wycliffe, well, frankly, they don't react in a very Christian manner.

They're going to react violently. The entire, you know, really it's not truly a nation yet, but what will become the Czech nation rises up over this. You have this order break out in Bohemia. The upper class, which supported Hus, their reaction is to flee, get out of Dodge, you know, because Sigismund now turns fiercely against the teachings of Hus, now that he thinks, safely dead.

But the common people, their reaction is they're not going to run away and hide like the other. Nobility do, they march, they have a big protest march in Prague, and they go down to the pretty much what we would call city hall, and they have what was supposed to be a discussion with the city leaders.

And the discussion gets kind of heated. It is claimed that one of the city leaders looked out the window to the crowd below and threw something at them. And this enraged the mob, as they now become, and they go in there, and there's several floors up above this sort of palace-like building they're in.

And they grab these guys and they throw them out the window, killing several of them as they, you know, from the fall. This is called the first, let's see if I pronounce this right, defensemenstration of Prague. Now, it's the first defense and stration of Prague because later on, you're going to have a, you know, during the Protestant Reformation, you're going to have, of course, the Bohemians very enthusiastically join, you know, the Reformation after you see what's about to happen here.

And they threw another group out the window. And that's kind of a funnier situation because it so happened there's a big pile of manure when they threw them out the window, and they fell on that pile of manure, and they actually survived the fall. And the Catholic Church taught that it was a miracle.

Of course, the process. You know, ridiculed, I say, no, it was the calvinier who saved them. But anyway, this is the first demonstration of Prague, and you know, they're not lucky, there's no pile of manure for them. And so, several of them were killed. And pretty much the entire city of Prague goes over to the Hussites, as they now are called.

And you have the beginnings of a literally a revolution in Bohemia. Now, this is 100 years before the later Protestant Reformation that this occurs. And so they rise up. The Holy Roman Emperor, you know, he thought by betraying Hus, you know, having him killed, that this is going to end all his troubles.

And oh boy, does he mess up. This just totally backfires on him. And they pretty much just say, you're no longer our emperor. Get out of Bohemia. And so the, of course, the Pope feels sorry for Sigismund, because, you know, the new Pope that is, Martin V. And so he calls a crusade against the Hussites, right?

And so you're going to have the first crusade is in 1420. And you see, most of the nobility, you know, when the Pope turns against them, the Holy Roman Emperor turns against them, most of the upper nobility, we don't want. To get these guys upset with us, we're going to bow out of this.

And so, what you have are peasant armies raised up. And remember, part of this, you have this teaching that Christ is no respecter of persons. There's going to have huge social implications here to this. There's neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, for we're all one in Christ Jesus, right?

And so, the masses, the underclasses, are somewhat radicalized by this idea. Of course, we don't see it radical here in the United States. We believe these truths are self-evident, all men are created equal. But back then, that's a radical idea. And so, these peasant armies are going to rise up, and they're going to have a champion to lead them, Jan Siska.

And he was a former mercenary, converted to the Hussite view of faith, and he is one-eyed. You know, he'd lost his eye previously in battle. And he will lead the Hussite armies into battle after battle, over 200 battles, and he never lost a battle. Just incredible, incredible leader.

And later on, he'll lose his other eye, another battle, and he'll continue to lead them, and he'll continue to win battles. On one occasion, he's with a group of men, they're ambushed, and even though he's blinded. Both eyes, you know, they could tell him what's going on, and he would give the orders, and they even won that battle, you know.

So, he's quite a character. So, the Hussites are going to defeat the crusade in 1420. Then they declare another crusade, 1421. Now, you've got to remember, they're sending, these are some of the best military personnel in all of Europe gathered together to attack Bohemia. We're talking nobility, we're talking knights in full body armor, and I mean, and they massively outnumber the Hussites, massively outnumber them.

You know, one occasion, John Ziska, he only has a, Jan Joska, he only has 400 men and 200 mounted knights attack them, and he wipes them out. Okay, it was just remarkable. So, you have 1420, they defeat that crusade. 1421, they defeat that crusade. 1422, they defeat that crusade.

1427, they defeat that crusade, and then a new pope comes to power. He also calls a crusade. 1431, they defeat that crusade. And now they start invading other countries. Now, having said all this, it is even more remarkable because even though we're not even calling them Protestants yet, that won't come until after Luke.

Luther, they have unfortunate features that Protestants do have. And guess what that is? Unity. Right? You know, how many Protestant denominations are there now? Yeah. And this is a problem with the Hussites. They start splitting into different religious factions. But when they're invaded, they were able to come together.

But once the invasion danger is over, they would start splitting up again. And the two major factions are the Euthroquists, the ones that, you know, they always have the flag with the chalice, you know, signifying that we believe you should be able to drink the wine as well.

And they would also have the goose, you know, on their flag, signifying their followers of Hus. And then you have the Taborites. And the Taborites take this notion of equality to a very radical extreme. They're going to build a city on what they call Mount Tabor. And they insist that everyone be totally equal.

And they insisted that no one own property. They're social like early primitive Christian communists, which was very radical for back in that day. And yet they're able to fund this because goals discovered nearby. And so they were able to finance their ideal communist. Society with those gold fields.

So you got these two different factions. And another reason they won is because, you know, knowing that, you see, one of the funny things about feudalism is, we think feudal warfare is real bad. And if you're a common grunt soldier, it was. But if you're a noble, it's really not so bad.

Because the object in feudal warfare for the nobility is not to kill each other. Anyone know what it is? Capture. Why? Exactly. That's how you make money in feudal warfare. You don't kill your opponent if he's a wealthy nobleman. No, no, no, no. You capture him, you take him back to your castle, and you whine and you dine him.

And, you know, because you're both great, you know, gentlemen of nobility. And then they pay you a ransom, you pocket that money, and you let him go, you know. And then next year, the tables may be turned. You might be captured, you see? All right. And so imagine what shock was for these noblemen who joined these crusades against the Hussites.

And, you know, they're used to being treated quite well. They're captured. Well, the Hussites' view is, uh-uh. You know, you're my enemy. You're trying to kill me. I'm going to kill you. And they just slaughtered the knights. And how did they slaughter them? Well, they had these war wagons.

They're actually medieval tanks. Kind of radical, we're going to really have a big effect on warfare, as a matter of fact. And you notice the flag there. See what's on the flag? You got the chalice, and you got that goose, the hoose. All right. And they had some of the first primitive muskets and cannon.

And they'd take these war wagons and they'd make these circles, sort of like circle the wagons. Instead of the Indians attacking, it's these knights attacking. And they would just slaughter these guys when they tried to get at them. That's one reason, even though they had smaller numbers, they could take on huge numbers and still win the battles.

And this shows them circling the wagons here. And so eventually, though, needless to say, you know, some within Bohemia get tired of this endemic, constant warfare. And the Catholic Church was getting tired of getting beaten every time. And so finally, the Catholic Church begins to negotiate. And the more moderate faction were the Euchrechrists based in Prague.

And they were getting very upset with the Taborites because the Taborites' radicalism just kept going on and on, getting more and more radical. In fact, Jan just Ziska had to leave Mount Tabor himself, you know, one of the military leaders because he felt they were going too radical.

And so basically, they cut this deal with the Catholics. Whereby they would pretend to rejoin the Catholic Church, but not really. And the Catholic Church would pretend that they have rejoined the Catholic Church, but agree that really they haven't. And it's sort of like a faith-saving deal on both sides.

And the problem is the Taborites wouldn't go along with it. So they have another big battle, and this time the Catholics join with the Hussite Eutrochists to fight against the Taborites. And the Taborites are disastrously defeated. And they then set up the Four Articles of Prague, Four Articles of Prague, which basically, throughout the kingdom of Bohemia, the Word of God would be proclaimed and preached freely.

In other words, that was one of the big things that get the Hussites in trouble going and doing street preaching and stuff like that. Now, you know, they can't be arrested for that. And in the holy sacraments, the body, the blood of God, both kinds, bread and wine, be given freely to all true Christians.

So in Bohemia, at least, they would be able to receive both the wine and the bread. And they also basically, the third one there is that the church property be taken away. You see, one of the things that's driving all of this is the fact that the Roman Catholic Church in Bohemia owned over half the land.

Over half the land. And they exacted payments from the Peasants, even higher than the government did, you know, in terms sort of like taxes. And so they want those lands to be taken away from the church, distributed amongst the people, and this would break the back of power, the political power of the church in Bohemia, you know, just taking away their land and their wealth.

And another idea was if people are in mortal sins, and what we're talking about here, you know, real serious crimes committed, there was sort of this double standard of justice that had been going on most parts of medieval Europe. You know, there's a standard of justice for a peasant, you know, they'll fry or kill him, but if you're a nobleman, you know, you might pay a fine.

They're saying, no, no, no. Everybody has the same standard of justice, basically. And so, with this acceptance of four articles, and they also got an archbishop, Roman Catholic archbishop, who's actually a Hussite. So, with that, you know, that source settled the situation. Of course, later on, of course, the Catholic Church is always trying to whittle away at this agreement they made.

And they would eventually, of course, rescind the agreement. But you have the Hussites will continue down until the time of the Protestant Reformation. And in fact, many of them later easily join the Protestants. And quite a few of them, part of them go Lutheran, part of them go Catholic.

Calvinists, part of them go their own way, and this is where you get the Moravians, you know, are actually part descendant out of this Hussite movement. Of course, you know, during the Protestant Reformation, poor Bohemia is going to lose, and, you know, the Catholics will come in, take over, they'll wipe out the Protestant nobility, and they will enforce Roman Catholicism upon the country.

And, of course, many of the Protestants had to flee. And that's another reason why the Moravians leave Bohemia and they go to Zinzenzdorf who protects them. And then quite a few came here. And by the way, it's a group of Moravians who are on a ship in a storm that John Wesley's on.

And Wesley is terrified that he's going to drown and go to hell. And he hears these Moravians, and what are they doing? They're praising God. You know, if we drown, it'd be an early ticket to heaven. He is so impressed by that, that that's one of the things that's later going to bring about a sincere conversion of Wesley.

And we all know about the Wesleyan movement as a result of that. But so there, you know, it lives on in so many directions when you serve Christ and come to Christ. These interconnections later on down the road. All right, so meantime, what's the after effects of all this?

Well, of course, all of this stuff with Wycliffe and Hoos. Put additional pressure on the Catholics to solve this schism. And so let me just return to that briefly. The way they do this is a conciliar movement, church councils. Popes very rarely would call church councils because it's the one thing that could have more power than they had.

And we've already seen how, well, at first, in the conciliar movement, as they call it, you have sincere church reformers get together and say, this great schism is horrible, it's terrible, we've got to solve this. And I think I briefly mentioned to you last time they call Council Pisa, you know, the place where you have the Leaning Tower Pisa.

And they have a big council there. But these guys were very, I guess you could say, purist. They're so sincere about cleaning up the church, they don't want anybody involved in the council who they view as corrupt. And so they refuse to let any secular authorities be there.

Now, I can understand them wanting that, but at the same time, it wasn't realistic. That's where the money came from. And so this Council of Pisa is the one that resulted instead of getting rid of the two popes to have one, they wind up with three, right? And of course, that's an even bigger mess.

And shortly thereafter, Sigismund, one who betrayed Hus, calls the Council of Constance. And at the Council of Constance, Protestants, you're going to have Martin V is going to become the one and only Pope, and so the Great Schism, Papal Schisms, ended 1417. This is all before 1492, Columbus selling the ocean blue.

All right, now, what else is going on? Well, certainly, Hoos is later going to have a profound influence on Martin Luther. Who, interestingly enough, initially didn't know hardly anything about Hus, but when Martin Luther is challenged to that famous debate that we'll be talking about in the future by Jan Ek, he does intensive study of Christian history, and he is so impressed with Hus, he famously says at his defense, Ich ben ein Hus, I am a Hussite.

But that's one thing. Of course, Wycliffe is also very, very much in the background. But within the Catholic Church itself, you have, and remember, both Wycliffe and Hus were Roman Catholics starting out. You know, they were within the church. They're trying to reform the church from within, and the church is just refusing to reform.

And we're going to see Martin Luther himself had no original intention of breaking with the Catholic Church. Once again, he's forced into that in many ways by the actions of the church. But you do have other movements who are trying to reform the church from within, and probably they are right on the edges of being declared heretical, but they are never quite fully thrown out.

And I would say one of the most important movements behind this is this Brethren of the Common Life. It's also sometimes called the modern devotion movement. Considering we're talking 1400, 1500s, it's kind of strange to call it modern, right? But so I think probably a better name is Brethren of the Common Life.

Sometimes they're simply just called the Brothers and Sisters, the Brothers and Sisters. This was a lay movement, you know, and it's within the Catholic Church. It's basically Catholics who actually have a personal conversion experience and come to know Christ within the Catholic Church. And they're excited about it.

The founder of the movement is Gerhard Groot. And this movement that he founds is a very grassroots type of movement. He was a priest. He would go forth and do lay preaching. And he encouraged others to follow along. And so they really emphasize, you know, sort of like, you know, you got, what's that book by Sheldon?

In His Steps. Used to be a Christian classic. Few people read it anymore. It's actually a great book to read, even now. But they want to imitate Christ. In fact, one of the great works that comes out of this entire movement is by Thomas Kempis, you know, on imitation of Christ.

And they, most of them, do not actually become clergy. They're lay people working within the church. They devote themselves to doing charitable work, nursing the sick, studying, teaching scriptures, copying religious and inspirational works. They founded a number of schools and libraries, and they always insisted upon a very high standard of learning.

But they're doing this within the church, and they usually get permission for doing what they're doing, which keeps them out of trouble. And some of the people who will attend schools set up by these guys is John of Wessel, Thomas of Kempis, Erasmus, and Martin Luther himself. We all would at some time or another attend schools run by the devotional.

Movement. And another, one of the guys that I think really stands out is John Wessel Gangsfort, somewhat obscure today, but he had a huge impact on Luther. In fact, Luther half century later went to the same school that Wessel taught at, which was Erfurt. You know, Luther later is a professor at Erfurt.

And no, that's where he got a degree from. He didn't teach there. But John attacked indulgences, you know, just like Wycliffe and who's before him. He taught the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Okay. And one of his more famous quotes, which he has quite a few, he who thinks to be justified through his own works does not know what it is to be saved.

Okay? In 1479, Wessel was arranged for heresy before the Inquisition. Among the charges that were laid to him was that he taught that scriptures alone are a trustworthy source of authority. The names of the predestinate were written in the book of life and cannot be erased by priestly ban.

Indulgences do not profit, he would argue. Christ is not pleased with festivals. Festivals of fasting, pilgrimages, or priestly celibacy. And Christ's body can be in the bread without any change of the bread substance. Pope and councils are not to be obeyed if they are out of accord with the scripture.

Or as the scripture has higher authority than the pope does. And all these things get you in deep, deep trouble back then to say. And of course, you know, they're going to condemn him for heresy. They use all sorts of things against him. He does recant, and yet they still don't let him out of jail.

And he died shortly thereafter. All right. Now, where are these Protestants, or Proto-Protestants, getting these ideas? I do wonder. So I thought we would do our scripture now. Just a few scriptures for y'all to reflect upon. And this idea of justification. Okay. Let's see how far back it goes.

Could you read the first verse for me there? And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Okay. So was Abraham justified by works? Was it by following some other human being on planet earth? What justified Abraham? Yeah. Okay, could you pass the mic on to someone else? Habakkuk. Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

The righteous shall live by his faith. Okay, let's pass that along. Psalms 32. This is David. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Now, I was listening to a sermon by David Platt last night, and I was just curious to see what he had to say about the Reformers.

And oh my gosh, here's a good sermon. Let me tell you, of course, he usually does give a good sermon, but he was pointing out that we might come back to this again. Almost all the English reformers that are burned by Bloody Mary, that as they're going to be burned, a large number of them would quote Psalms 51.

And he was, you know, kind of wondering about that. And one of the points that Plot pointed out is that all the martyrs of the faith. Understood, well, he says three things. I'm not going to do Plot's sermon for us right here, but one thing that really stood out there in his remarks was that they understood how sinful they were.

In fact, depraved we are. We're all sinners, and we're all deserving of God's wrath. We deserve to go to hell. And they understood that it was the gift of Christ that saves us. We're justified definitely not by our works, but the grace of God, it is a gift.

And so I think David knew a little bit about that, didn't he? But if we're honest, we're no better than David, right? And so pretty amazing there. And then, who's going next? I guess I'm next. What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Of course, this brings it full circle from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

And Paul is referring right back to the previous verses we read. Okay, let's go on. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Continue. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

And again, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. All right. Someone else. How about Jackson back there? Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. Sum it up. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that one may boast.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You know, it's really a kind of amazing thing to think. In the medieval time, there's sort of this idea is grace plus works. You know, somehow God helps you to achieve grace, but you have to work to earn it.

And, of course, this verse points out very clearly, I think, you know, you're saved by grace through faith so that you can do good works. You know, we can't do good works of our own. You know, there, you know, what does the scriptures say or works as 50 rags, right?

But it's only after you have received this grace that you can go forth and do good works with the right attitude, the right spirit, and it's empowered by the Holy Spirit, not empowered by your flesh. You know, so, and all these guys, all this is right there, very clear, you know, in the scriptures.

And they're just not seeing it. But these reformers did see it, and they're willing to die for it. And some of them, as we see, do. All right. But anyway, Wessel taught that whom God chooses will be saved irrespective of pope and priest. All who have faith will enjoy as much blessedness as prelates.

In other words, you know, you don't have to be clergy to enjoy, you know, the gift of. Christ, and you're loved just as much by Jesus as the highest archbishop is. He also maintained the distinction between the visible and the invisible church. And what he's talking about there is, you know, there's plenty of people in churches that claim to be Christians, but are they?

So the invisible church are all those who Christ has, you know, chosen, right? He knows who are his sheep, and you know, his sheep know him and they follow him, right? Okay. And he defined the church as an aggregation of all the faithful who are bound together by their love for Christ.

He also taught the elect were saved by grace alone, wrote, whom God wishes to save, he would save by giving him grace if all the priests should wish to damn and excommunicate him. You know, he says, you know, the church cannot excommunicate anyone from Jesus, you know, if he has accepted Jesus.

Okay, he also taught against indulgences, transubstantiation, priestly celibacy. And Luther, who, of course, in his study of church history, comes across the writings of Vessel, and he's just astonished. He said, if I had read the works of Vessel beforehand, it might well have seemed that I derived all my ideas from him.

You know, this guy who came before Luther. And the point that I want to emphasize. Here is what Luther is teaching is nothing new. Of course, it goes right back to Scripture itself, you know, but there were others before Luther within the Catholic Church that had been teaching this long before Luther, you know.

And of course, as I mentioned, he's tried for heresy, imprisoned, died in 1489. Now, Thomas of Kempis is another person who's influenced by this brothers and sisters movement or devotional movement. And he writes the greatest work of the period. Even today, both Protestants and Catholics love this work.

It seems to be able to reach out to everyone. The Imitation of Christ. This gentle masterpiece on meditation and prayer was written in a very simple language that all could comprehend. And it opposed, you know, it's not heavy-duty scholarly theological works that people can not get into. And in some ways, it's sort of the Pilgrim's Progress of its day.

You know, who's later one of the most famous novels by John Bunyan. You have his appeal was very broad, very deep, and it emphasized the very conscious attempt in all questions of life, ask yourself the question, what would Christ do? And then attempt to imitate Christ himself in your daily walk.

Okay, and if you want to get an idea of some of the language in this work, it says: In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection against our enemies, in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is excellence of virtue, in the cross is perfection of holiness.

There is no salvation of soul nor hope of eternal life except save in the cross. Now, Erasmus. Erasmus is a very interesting guy, direct personal influence on Martin Luther. They corresponded with one another. They eventually break over the very simple fact that whereas Luther decides to make a clean break from the Roman Catholic Church, Erasmus just couldn't bring himself to do that.

He remains in the Catholic Church. They're contemporaneous. They live at the same time, although he is, of course, older than Luther and had much more famous reputation long before Luther comes on the scene. Erasmus was always cagey about his origins. And, you know, I just tell you right off.

The bat, why? He was actually son of a priest. Now, what's the problem with that? You're not supposed to have. Actually, quite a few priests had concubines. And we're going to find out in some cases the church even allowed this. Uh, Zwingli, the big reformer in Switzerland, he's son of a priest.

In fact, he lived with his father. And his father, the priest, had a whole family and had a, you wouldn't call her a wife, she'd be called a concubine. And he got special dispensation from a bishop that allowed him to do this, and it was all in the open.

You know, you actually had all kinds of weird situations at this time. This idea that all priests were celibate really was never ever true. Okay, so he's born out of wedlock, son of a priest. Actually, he's not so much abandoned by his parents. They die, you know. But before his father died, he placed him in one of these devotional schools.

All right, you know, modern devotional movement. And so he's influenced by that. Then they placed him with the Augustinian Eremites. Now, we'll find out when we get to Luther. The Augustinian Eremites were the toughest, they're sort of the Marines of the monastic movements. I mean, they were hardcore.

And he didn't really, unlike Luther, he did not take well the Augustinian Eremites, you know. But he is placed in that monastery, but he does learn. The guy's a brilliant scholar. He just, you know, he really took to learning. Then a bishop is looking for a personal secretary, and he jumped at the opportunity to get out of the monastery.

He starts working for this bishop, and then the bishop allowed him to go to the University of Paris. And for that, he found, you know, he's like a fish in water, you know, because he was just a natural-born scholar. And so he becomes a professor. And he's something of an educational religious reformer, but he goes with, he does this within the church.

He always was right on the edge of getting in trouble, but he always would pull back before he'd, you know, really get in a lot of trouble. He wrote a ton of incredible works. Some were just for popular consumption, such as Adages. The Adages, he just collected all these sayings, and if you write a letter, you use his adages to get good quotations from it, to spice up your letter or whatever.

And you may not be aware of it, but it's probably due to him that we still have some of these old phraseologies in the English language today, such as, leave no stone unturned, and where there's smoke, there's fire. Of course, this is even before him. He just collected this, and they've been going ever.

Since. Another famous work, probably his greatest masterpiece, was In Praise of Folly. And here he explains how one must guard against human self-deception. In other words, our sin. You know, we often deceive ourselves and don't recognize it. And he believed, can you say it, Philosophia Christe, a phrase indicating his simple ethical piety in, once again, imitation of Christ, devotional movement.

He's very influenced by that. He had very simple ethical piety on imitation of Christ. And he would, in a lot of his writings, kind of ridicule the popes, but he'd do it in a very sly fashion. And he would really go after the worldliness within the church and this excessive emphasis on material gain and position.

But he also, of course, at one point he goes to England. Actually, he's there for a while, taught at Oxford. And there he meets some heavy hitters, John Cole. John Cole founded one of the English schools still in existence to this day. He would preach sermons in English.

He would go to the original Greek and Hebrew, and he would exposit. He was sort of an expository preacher within the Catholic Church. You know, and had huge crowds come out and listen to him. He is very influenced by John Cole. He also met Thomas More and was a friend with Thomas More.

Of course, you know, Moore goes the opposite direction. And then he also personally knew Henry VIII. You know, so he got around. And yet, he's doing heavy-duty scholarship. Of course, one of his greatest contributions to biblical scholarship is his Greek translation of the New Testament, you know, and a major, major contribution, Western biblical scholarship.

And in many, many ways, Erasmus, through his criticisms of the church, his always trying to get the church reform, is going to set the groundwork for the later coming of the Reformation itself. Indeed, it is sometimes said that Erasmus laid the egg that his contemporary Luther hatched, you know, which I thought was kind of an interesting quote.

Erasmus was an ordained Catholic priest, and as I've already mentioned, he stayed at the University of Paris, modern devotion movement, greatest scholar of his day, and he is acquainted with most of the other great scholars throughout Europe. His editions of Greek and Latin classics and the fathers of the church were also classics.

He did quite a lot of research on the early church fathers as well. And he always had this keen wit, sharp humor, and he was emphasized moderation, tolerance, and all things. His position on the Reformation were denounced both by Catholics and Protestants. The Catholics thought he went too far and he is too friendly towards the Protestants.

The Protestants didn't think he went far enough because, of course, he wouldn't switch over. So he kind of got from both directions. And he eventually is going to break with Luther on this issue of predestination. You know, Luther actually, a lot of people don't seem to realize this, Luther and Calvin are pretty much in agreement.

You know, and he tended more towards free will, and that's what they're going to actually have their final break over. Now, just as kind of a little note here, there's the Roman Catholic Church, it was a huge umbrella. You might have already kind of gathered this from some of these things I said.

And within it are actually quite a few factions, you know. And you see this especially highlighted within the monastic movements. And I hope I don't confuse you by pointing this out. You know, you've got this wide spectrum of views. And in some ways, it could be said that these different Catholic monasticism Monastic orders are almost like separate denominations within the Catholic Church itself.

And you see this particularly the Augustinians, which shouldn't surprise you now, you know, that's what Luther was in coming up, they tended to be the most Calvinistic. And that's because they follow Augustinians, who they follow of the church fathers. Augustine. And of course, Augustine is really where Calvin gets many of his ideals on predestination.

So they tend to be rather predestinarian, whereas the Franciscans, you know, followers of St. Francis, they tend to be what you call free willers, you know. And they would fight and clash over these different viewpoints throughout the time. But it just, you know, gives you a little bit different perspective.

And so with all that said and done, the ground has been plowed, the seed has been planted, and next time we're going to see the full scale breaking forth of the Protestant Reformation with the person of Martin Luther.