The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 217

special abhorrence.” But, like so many others, providentially guided to
the Bible, he was amazed to find there, “not the doctrines of Rome, but
the doctrines of Luther.”—Wylie, b. 13, ch. 9. Henceforth he gave
himself with entire devotion to the cause of the gospel.
“The most learned of the nobles of France,” his genius and
eloquence, his indomitable courage and heroic zeal, and his influence at
court,—for he was a favorite with the king,—caused him to be regarded
by many as one destined to be the Reformer of his country. Said Beza:
“Berquin would have been a second Luther, had he found in Francis I
a second elector.” “He is worse than Luther,” cried the papists.—Ibid.,
b. 13, ch. 9. More dreaded he was indeed by the Romanists of France.
They thrust him into prison as a heretic, but he was set at liberty by
the king. For years the struggle continued. Francis, wavering between
Rome and the Reformation, alternately tolerated and restrained the fierce
zeal of the monks. Berquin was three times imprisoned by the papal
authorities, only to be released by the monarch, who, in admiration of
his genius and his nobility of character, refused to sacrifice him to the
malice of the hierarchy.
Berquin was repeatedly warned of the danger that threatened him in
France, and urged to follow the steps of those who had found safety in
voluntary exile. The timid and time-serving Erasmus, who with all the
splendor of his scholarship failed of that moral greatness which holds
life and honor subservient to truth, wrote to Berquin: “Ask to be sent
as ambassador to some foreign country; go and travel in Germany. You
know Beda and such as he—he is a thousand-headed monster, darting
venom on every side. Your enemies are named legion. Were your
cause better than that of Jesus Christ, they will not let you go till they
have miserably destroyed you. Do not trust too much to the king’s
protection. At all events, do not compromise me with the faculty of
theology.”—Ibid., b. 13, ch. 9.
But as dangers thickened, Berquin’s zeal only waxed the stronger.
So far from adopting the politic and self-serving

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