PROTESTANT noble, Vicomte de Castets, offered Labadie a refuge in his castle from his Jesuit enemies. Here, shut in for safety for about two months, he first read the writings of Calvin.
But it would seem it was not the teaching of Calvin which attracted him so much as the saintly, unworldly lives of the family of Castets. They received him too as a brother in Christ, and even as a teacher. For some of his teaching he had received from God, and it was therefore the same as that which God had taught to them and to Calvin.
Labadie saw that amongst Protestants he would be free to preach and teach those truths which had brought down upon him the hatred of the Jesuits.
He was driven from Castets by the necessity of escaping from the neighbourhood of the persecuting Bishop. He fled to Montauban, and was there received into the communion of the Reformed Church, October 16th, 1650.
Was Labadie now a Protestant ? In many respects he was. But if by that word we mean to include a belief in all the truths of the gospel, he was not only at that time scarcely a Protestant, but at no time in his life down here on earth. He still spoke of the tears of repentance, and the prayers of the penitent, as being that, which in part at least, puts away sin from before the eyes of God. He would therefore have found nothing amiss in the faith of those who say they "hope they are saved," in those who are still, as they say, "doing their best to obtain mercy." Well aware, as he was, that none are saved by their good works, he attached the more value to their tears and prayers.
In a word, Labadie was ignorant, as even now thousands calling themselves Protestants are ignorant, of the immeasurable value of that precious Blood which puts away all the sin of all who believe, completely and for ever.
Not only so. He never saw into what place the precious blood of Christ brings each one who, in this time of his rejection, believes in Him. He not only was ignorant that the believer is brought out completely and eternally from the state of condemnation and of distance from God, but he was ignorant also of the blessed welcome into that love which is declared to us by the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father—" Thou hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me."
"There are some," said Henry Suso, "who are going from, some who are going to, some who are going in." Some fleeing from the City of Destruction, from the wrath, the curse, the misery. Some drawn to Christ by the attraction of His love. Some—would there were more—who go in, and know the joy of the Father, who hear the music and the singing of His welcome, and who feast with Him in the inner court of His delight.
But it is only as we know the power and the value of the blood of Christ, that thus we can rejoice in the joy of God. " Brought nigh" by the blood alone, and trusting only in that blood, we stand upon the Eternal Rock. We look away from that blood to ourselves—to our repentance, our tears, our prayers, our self-denials, our best endeavours, and at once, if conscience is not dead, we feel the ground give way beneath our feet, and we sink in the Slough of Despond. Thus Labadie, with a true heart, and a sincere love to God, was haunted even to the last by the shadow of guilt from which he hoped to escape by earnest striving and labour and sorrow. The scars of the fetters which had bound him in the Jesuit convent, remained to his last day here on earth. He has lost them now. He has " gone in" at last.
For seven years he lived at Montauban, where he learnt more of the reformed faith, and laboured as a pastor and preacher. His preaching, as may be expected, consisted of much of the law, and less of the gospel. He preached earnestly against theatres, dress, gambling, and profligacy. He desired to drive men from the bondage of Egypt, and he could tell them something of Canaan.
But the land of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, was not a familiar home to the pupil of the Jesuits. He had a faithful heart, he knew the Lord Jesus as his Master, and looked to Him as his Saviour, however little he realized the fulness of His salvation.
But he knew not as Paul knew, the marvels of the love of Christ to the unworthy, and the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart conceived, but which God reveals by His Spirit to the eye and ear of faith. Labadie was at last driven from Montauban by fresh persecutions, and for two years was the preacher at the little town of Orange, then independent of France, being the hereditary possession of the princes of Nassau-Orange.
At the end of that time Orange was threatened by the troops of Louis XIV. And just at the same moment Labadie was invited to be the pastor of the French Reformed Church in London.
He set off on this long journey, taking Geneva on his way. There, just as a hundred and twenty-three years before it had happened to Calvin, he was detained by the great Council of Geneva to preach in their city, and persuaded by them to renounce the thought of going to London, in order to be their preacher as Calvin had been.
He, therefore, settled down in the ancient stronghold of Protestantism, where, we are told, his marvellous sermons speedily filled the churches, and emptied the taverns. The Lord's-day was again remembered and hallowed, feasting and drunkenness, which had regained their hold of the Genevese, became almost unheard of. Gambling was given up, and money won in gambling restored to the owners ; tradesmen became honest, and magistrates became just. Labadie was owned as a Reformer, a Reformer of the Reformed.
But of his former fallen Church, lie said with bitter sorrow—for he loved her well, and hoped against hope—" We would have healed Babylon, but she would not be healed : forsake her, and let us declare the work of the Lord our God."
Before proceeding further with the story of Labadie, we must leave him to preach at Geneva, and travel back from the shores of the beautiful lake to the flat prosaic land of Dr. Voet and Dr. Koch.