84
The Great Controversy
widely extended. “We can do nothing against the truth, but for the
truth.”
2 Corinthians 13:8
.
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“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 hereafter united in their lives, and
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in death they were not to be divided. Brilliancy of genius, eloquence
and learning—gifts that win popular favor—were possessed in a pre-
eminent degree by Jerome; but in those qualities which constitute
real strength of character, Huss was the greater. His calm judgment