The following day Huss stood a third time before the council. Thirty-nine propositions were produced and read, alleging errors which he had advanced in his writings, his preachings, and his private conversations. Huss, like most reformers, held the doctrine of salvation by grace without works of law. He affirmed that none were members of the true church of Christ whatever their dignity, whether popes or cardinals, if they were ungodly. "True faith in the word of God," he said, "is the foundation of all virtues." He appealed to the honored name of Augustine on these points; and maintained that the only title of churchman, prelate, or pope to apostolic succession was to possess the virtues of the apostles. "The pontiff who lives not the life of St. Peter is no vicar of Christ, but the forerunner of antichrist." He quoted a sentence from St. Bernard which gave great weight to this solemn saying: "The slave of avarice is the successor not of St. Peter, but of Judas Iscariot." The council was embarrassed, as no churchman would venture to turn into ridicule the sayings of such honored Fathers.
The propositions treated chiefly of two things:—1, The false theology of Rome—Huss had denounced the popish doctrine of salvation by works, in the many ways which the church prescribes; 2, The false ecclesiastical system of popery with its glaring abuses—these he exposed and condemned in the most unsparing terms. But his condemnation seems to have hinged on his boldly maintaining that no office, king or priest, availed in God's sight, if the king or the priest lived in mortal sin. When interrogated on this point by the cardinal of Cambray, who saw his perilous position in the presence of the emperor; Huss repeated his words aloud—"A king in mortal sin is no king before God." These words sealed his fate. "There never lived," said Sigismund, "a more pernicious heretic." "What!" exclaimed the cardinal, "art thou not content with degrading the ecclesiastical power? wouldst thou thrust kings from their thrones?" "A man," argued another cardinal, "may be a true pope, prelate, or king, though not a true Christian." "Why, then," said Huss, "have you deposed John XXIII.?" The emperor answered, "For his notorious misdeeds." Huss was now guilty of another sin—discomfiting and perplexing his adversaries.
It would be tedious and uninteresting to notice all the false charges and calumnies which were heaped upon him, and the firm answers which he gave; but the following may be considered as the substance of his long trial. He was vehemently pressed to retract his errors, to own the justice of the accusations, to make unqualified submission to the decrees of the council, to abjure all his opinions. But neither promises nor menaces moved him. "To abjure," he said, "is to renounce an error that has been held. As to the opinions imputed to me, which I have never held, those I cannot retract; as to those which I do indeed profess, I am ready to retract them—to renounce them with all my heart—when I shall be better instructed by the council." The fathers replied to the conscientious integrity of their victim, "The province of the council is not to instruct but to decide, to command obedience to its decisions or to enforce the penalty." The tender shepherds of Constance now loudly demanded a universal retraction, or to burn alive the atrocious heretic. The emperor condescended to argue with him; the most able and subtle of the doctors, both in philosophy and theology, reasoned with him; but Huss replied with firm humility that he sought instruction; that he could not abjure errors of which he was not convinced. He was carried back to prison; the faithful Bohemian knight—John of Chlum—a true Onesiphorus—followed to console his worn and weary friend. "Oh, what a comfort to me," said Huss, "to see that this nobleman did not disdain to stretch out his arm to a poor heretic in irons, whom all the world, as it were, had forsaken."