Within four years of their martyrdom, the teachings of Huss and Jerome had been embraced by the bulk of the Bohemian nation. Communion was celebrated with both the bread and the cup, and the services were held in the native tongue. There was, however, a party which desired a more radical reform, insisting on the Scriptures as the only standard of faith. These were called Taborites from a famous gathering on a hill near Prague called Tabor, where the Lord’s supper was celebrated according to the scriptural mode. The others were called Calixtines or Utraquists, because their main point was that the cup should not be withheld from the people. The Pope proclaimed a crusade against Bohemia, and the King having died, the Emperor Sigismund claimed the throne, intending to bring the country into submission to Rome. This resulted in the long and sanguinary conflict known as the Hussite wars. The Bohemian nation rose under the leadership of an extraordinary man named Ziska, who transformed his rude peasant followers into a formidable army. Beginning with no proper weapons, they acquired them in successive victories and defeated again and again the Emperor’s forces and put to flight immense forces of crusaders who were collected at the Pope’s behest. Ziska having died from the plague, another champion arose, Procopius. The two final crusades ended in the abject humiliation of the papal forces. On both occasions, the crusaders fled panic-stricken before the Bohemians without striking a blow, leaving an immense booty of weapons and treasure to their victorious opponents. The last of these amazing victories took place in August 1431. For twelve years the carnage and desolation had continued, and both sides were ready to welcome a peaceful issue. Where force had failed, wiles succeeded. Negotiations ensued. Rome offered certain concessions; the larger party was pacified by being allowed to celebrate the communion in both kinds. A quarrel even broke out between the Calixtines and the Taborites. They fought each other, Procopius dying with his defeated troops. The Calixtines were concerned with a matter of form; the Taborites were devoted to the Scriptures. A Romish historian, Aeneas Sylvius, tells us that every woman among them was well acquainted with the Old and New Testaments. Tracts on religious subjects were produced even by men among them of the artisan class.
Even the little religious liberty the Calixtines had secured was finally taken from them. A foreign army again entered the country as the executant of the papal wrath, and the history of Bohemia in the last forty years of the fifteenth century was a time of terrible distress and confusion.
The use of the sword by Christians cannot be defended, and there is little doubt that many who followed Ziska were either very ignorant of true Christianity or were actuated by party or patriotic motives. But God raised up a truly Christian testimony, and when the war subsided there came into evidence a band of simple, devoted believers who strove to follow the faith of the gospel. These were the fruit of the testimony of a remarkable man known as Peter of Chelcic. Little is known of him except from his writings. He lived at the time of the Hussite wars. For a time he was a soldier, but feeling the wickedness of such a life, he thought of entering a monastery. Finding the monasteries full of immorality, he retired to his estate at Chelcic. He had acquired a good knowledge of the Scriptures and was familiar with the teachings of Wycliffe and Huss. His knowledge of the truth showed him that the whole system of politics and religion was wrong. No sect was right — none was true to the Spirit of Christ. As for war, he said, “It is a breach of the laws of God; all soldiers are violent men, murderers, a godless mob.” He regarded the Hussite wars as a disgrace to both sides. For him the teaching of Christ and His apostles was sufficient. Even the State he regarded as a worldly thing. “The first city,” he said, “was built by Cain,” and he advised Christians to live in the country. He regarded the union of Church and State as a great evil. Like the Waldenses, from whom he may have acquired some of his thoughts, he traced this evil back to the establishment of the Church by Constantine. He condemned the clergy very severely, saying that they baptized sinners, young and old, without repentance, sold the communion to rogues, abused confession by pardoning men who never meant to amend their evil ways, allowed the most worthless men to become priests, and degraded marriage by extolling celibacy as more holy. All this, he taught, was the outcome of the union of Church and State — the greatest evil under heaven. His remedy was for all Christians to separate from the evil system of Rome and return to the teaching of Christ and the apostles. Those who followed his teaching were called the Brethren of Chelcic. The movement spread; companies multiplied. From all parts of Bohemia and from all ranks of society their numbers were added to. About the year 1457 these people settled in an almost deserted village in the northeast of Bohemia named Kunwald. Rich and poor, one in heart and mind, they left the Church of Rome. They built houses, cultivated the land and appointed a pastor to supervise their little flock. They had elders, overseers and lay teachers, but they relied on a Calixtine priest to administer the sacrament, so their separation was not complete. In 1461 the King ordered all his people to join either the Roman or the Calixtine (Utraquist) Church. Bitter persecution followed. Their priest was cast into a dungeon, four of their leading men were burned alive, their homes were broken up, and they had to flee to the mountains. Because they lived in caves, they were called Pitmen. In spite of all, they increased. They never retaliated. “When smitten on one cheek, they turned the other, and from ill report they went to good report till the King for very shame let them be.”
They thought it was necessary to have priests to dispense the sacraments, although for a time they were inclined to do without them, but tradition dies hard, and they searched the world for holy priests. They made inquiries as to the Nestorian Church but learned it was no better than Rome, nor was the Russian Church. They wondered if they were alone among the witnesses of Jesus on the earth and sent out messengers to discover others who shared their faith. Here and there they found isolated confessors of the faith who, like themselves, were suffering persecution. They learned that in the Alpine valleys there was a body of Christians clinging to the Word of God and refusing the corruptions of Rome. Finally, they chose, by lot, three men, and supposing that they must be ordained by a bishop, they had them ordained by a Waldensian bishop, imagining that thereby they had established the true apostolic succession. They endeavored to follow closely what they called “the law of Christ” — the Lord’s teaching in the gospels. The epistles they regarded as of secondary importance. From this time they became popular and numerous, and their strict rules, which excluded the learned and the great, were gradually relaxed. Under a leader of broader views named Luke, their ritual became more elaborate. They published the first church hymnal in history and many books. Their numbers had increased to 100,000. In 1480 they were joined by a body of Waldenses fleeing from persecution in Austria.
Once again they came under the papal ban. In 1500 the Pope issued a bull against them, their meetings were forbidden and their books were ordered to be burned. They were commanded to return either to the Roman or the Utraquist Church. Their priests and teachers were imprisoned. Once more they fled to the woods and forests, and anyone found harboring them was punished. During the civil war between the Romish and the Utraquist Churches in 1516, they seem to have been forgotten.
Once again we observe a fact that has come before us many times in this history, that the written Word of God is the basis of a true and living faith. In it we have “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 33Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. (Jude 3) JND), which cannot be added to without corrupting it nor taken from without weakening or destroying it.