The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 92

truth was to be proclaimed from the very stronghold of the kingdom
of error. Wycliffe was summoned for trial before the papal tribunal at
Rome, which had so often shed the blood of the saints. He was not
blind to the danger that threatened him, yet he would have obeyed the
summons had not a shock of palsy made it impossible for him to perform
the journey. But though his voice was not to be heard at Rome, he
could speak by letter, and this he determined to do. From his rectory
the Reformer wrote to the pope a letter, which, while respectful in tone
and Christian in spirit, was a keen rebuke to the pomp and pride of the
papal see.
“Verily I do rejoice,” he said, “to open and declare unto every man
the faith which I do hold, and especially unto the bishop of Rome: which,
forasmuch as I do suppose to be sound and true, he will most willingly
confirm my said faith, or if it be erroneous, amend the same.
“First, I suppose that the gospel of Christ is the whole body of God’s
law.... I do give and hold the bishop of Rome, forasmuch as he is the
vicar of Christ here on earth, to be most bound, of all other men, unto
that law of the gospel. For the greatness among Christ’s disciples did not
consist in worldly dignity or honors, but in the near and exact following
of Christ in His life and manners.... Christ, for the time of His pilgrimage
here, was a most poor man, abjecting and casting off all worldly rule and
honor....
“No faithful man ought to follow either the pope himself or any of the
holy men, but in such points as he hath followed the Lord Jesus Christ;
for Peter and the sons of Zebedee, by desiring worldly honor, contrary to
the following of Christ’s steps, did offend, and therefore in those errors
they are not to be followed....
“The pope ought to leave unto the secular power all temporal
dominion and rule, and thereunto effectually to move and exhort
his whole clergy; for so did Christ, and especially by His apostles.
Wherefore, if I have erred in any of these points, I will most humbly
su bmit myself unto correction,

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