troduced by vain gentility; they only profit the Church as the devil does. 30. The excommunication of the Pope, or of any prelate soever, is not to be dreaded, because it is the censure of antichrist. 31. Those founding cloisters sin, and those entering are diabolical men. 32. To enrich the clergy is contrary to the rule of Christ. 33. Pope Silvester and the Emperor Constantine erred in endowing the Church. 34. All of the order of mendicants are heretics, and those giving them alms are excommunicated. 35. Those entering religion, or any order, are by the very fact unfit to observe the divine precepts, and consequently to reach the kingdom of heaven, unless they shall have apostatized from the same. 36. The Pope with all his clergy holding possessions are heretics in this, that they hold possessions, as also are those consenting to them, all secular princes forsooth, and the rest of the laity. 37. The Roman Church is the synagogue of Satan; nor is the Pope the next and immediate vicar of Christ and of the apostles. 38. The decretals of the Church are apocryphal, and seduce from the faith of Christ; and the clergy are fools who study them. 39. The emperor and secular princes were seduced by the devil to endow the Church with temporal goods. 40. The election of the Pope by the cardinals was introduced by the devil. 41. It is not necessary to salvation to believe that the Roman Church is supreme amongst other churches. 42. It is silly to put confidence in the indulgences of the Pope and of bishops. 43. Oaths are unlawful which are intended to strengthen human contracts and civil intercourse. 44. Augustin, Benedict, and Bernard, were damned if they did not repent of their having had possessions, and of having instituted and entered religions;[1] and thus, from the Pope to the last religious, all are heretics. 45. All religions were introduced indifferently by the devil. End of the Articles of Wickliff.
And the same John Wickliff composed books, named a Dialogue and Trialogue, by himself, and several other tracts, volumes, and minor works, in which he inserted, and dogmatically set down, certain proscribed articles, and several other damnable ones, &c. These again having been brought to the knowledge of the Apostolic See, and of the general
- ↑ I. e. monastic orders.
