In this preface the ex-burgomaster did not spare the priests. The famous placards published in France, in 1534, were not more severe. Michelsen believed that in order to make known the Gospel of Christ it was necessary to destroy the power of the clergy. ‘These blasphemers,’ he said, ‘by publishing their anti-christian bulls and their ecclesiastical laws, have obscured the Holy Scriptures, and blinded the simple flock of Christ. With lying lips and hearts callous to the miseries of others, they have so preached to the people their useless verbiage that we have been unable to learn any thing except what their pretended sanctity deigned to tell us. But now God, in his unsearchable grace, has taken pity on our wretchedness, and has begun to reveal to his people his holy word, so that, as he had foretold by one of his prophets, their errors, their perfidy, and their tyranny shall be known to all the world.’[251] At the same time Michelsen exhorted the Danes to make use of their rights and liberty in drawing at the very fountain-head of the truth. It was a strange thing to see the two rival kings both favoring the Reformation, the bad man by his activity, the good by his neutrality. The Danish clergy perceived the blow which was struck at them, and they endeavored to evade and to return it. They could no longer resort to force, for the liberal principles of Frederick were opposed to it. A man was therefore sought who could maintain the contest by speech and by writing. Such a man they thought they had found in Paul Eliæ. No one in Denmark was better acquainted with the Reformation than he was; he had for some time gone with it, and afterwards had abandoned it and been rewarded by the favor of the bishops. He was summoned from Jutland, where he then was, to Zealand; and he began at once to act and to preach against the Wittenberg doctrine. But people remembered his antecedents and they had no confidence in him. Instead, therefore, of attacking the friends of the Holy Scriptures, he was obliged to defend himself.[252] [Sidenote: The King’s Son In Germany.]