The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 103

“The mind of Huss, at this stage of his career, would seem to have
been the scene of a painful conflict. Although the church was seeking to
overwhelm him by her thunderbolts, he had not renounced her authority.
The Roman Church was still to him the spouse of Christ, and the pope
was the representative and vicar of God. What Huss was warring against
was the abuse of authority, not the principle itself. This brought on a
terrible conflict between the convictions of his understanding and the
claims of his conscience. If the authority was just and infallible, as
he believed it to be, how came it that he felt compelled to disobey it?
To obey, he saw, was to sin; but why should obedience to an infallible
church lead to such an issue? This was the problem he could not
solve; this was the doubt that tortured him hour by hour. The nearest
approximation to a solution which he was able to make was that it
had happened again, as once before in the days of the Saviour, that
the priests of the church had become wicked persons and were using
their lawful authority for unlawful ends. This led him to adopt for his
own guidance, and to preach to others for theirs, the maxim that the
precepts of Scripture, conveyed through the understanding, are to rule
the conscience; in other words, that God speaking in the Bible, and
not the church speaking through the priesthood, is the one infallible
guide.”—Wylie, b. 3, ch. 2.
When after a time the excitement in Prague subsided, Huss returned
to his chapel of Bethlehem, to continue with greater zeal and courage the
preaching of the word of God. His enemies were active and powerful,
but the queen and many of the nobles were his friends, and the people
in great numbers sided with him. Comparing his pure and elevating
teachings and holy life with the degrading dogmas which the Romanists
preached, and the avarice and debauchery which they practiced, many
regarded it an honor to be on his side.
Hitherto Huss had stood alone in his labors; but now Jerome, who
while in England had accepted the teachings of Wycliffe, joined in the
work of reform. The two were

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