Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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The book had scarcely begun its career, and the praises had scarcely begun
to be received, ere Beza fell seriously sick. Sobered by his gaze into the
eyes of death, his conscience rebuked him for his duplicity in receiving
ecclesiastical benefices as if he was a faithful son of the Church, whereas he
was at heart a Protestant; for his cowardice in cloaking his real opinions;
for his negligence in not keeping the promise he had voluntarily made to
the woman he had secretly married four years before; and for the general
condition of his private and public life. The teachings of Wolmar came
back to him. This world seemed very hollow;. its praises and honors very
cloying. The call to a higher, purer, nobler life was heard, and he obeyed;
and, although only convalescent, leaving father and fatherland, riches and
honors, he fled from the city of his triumphs and his trials, and, taking
Claudine Denosse with him, crossed the border into Switzerland, f1280 and
on Oct. 23, 1548, entered the city of Geneva. He was doubtless attracted
thither because his intimate friend Jean Crespin, one of the witnesses of his
secret alliance, was living there, likewise a fugitive for religion’s sake—and
there lived John Calvin.
From being the poet of the Renaissance, bright, witty, free, Beza, from the
hour he joined the Reformed Church, became a leader in all its affairs and
one of the chiefs of Protestantism. f1281
§ 168. BEZA AT LAUSANNE AND AS A DELEGATE TO THE
GERMAN PRINCES.
Beza’s earliest business after greeting Calvin was to marry in church
Claudine Denosse. Then he looked around for an occupation that would
support him. He considered for a time going into the printing business with
Crespin, but on his return from a visit to Wolmar at Tübingen he yielded to
the persuasions of Pierre Viret, who entertained him as he was passing
through Lausanne, and on Nov. 6, 1549, became professor of Greek in the
Academy there, f1282 and entered upon a course of great usefulness and
influence. He showed his zeal as well as biblical learning by giving public
lectures on the Epistle to the Romans and on the Epistles of Peter; and that
he still was a poet, and that, too, of the Renaissance, only in the religious
and not usual sense (of regeneration and not renascence), by continuing the
translation of the Psalms begun by Clement Marot, and by publishing a
drama, classically constructed, on the Sacrifice of Abraham. f1283 All these
performances were in the French language.