French Reformation
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was,” says a writer, “a great follower of the papistical constitutions,
and a great hearer of masses and sermons; ... and he crowned all his
other virtues by holding Lutheranism in special abhorrence.” But, like
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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 elo-
quence, 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 counsel of Erasmus,
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he determined upon still bolder measures. He would not only stand in
defense of the truth, but he would attack error. The charge of heresy
which the Romanists were seeking to fasten upon him, he would rivet