You can well believe that as time went on the priests and doctors of the Paris University became more openly and bitterly the enemies of Master Faber and of Farel. Though they had the protection and favor of the Princess Margaret, and of the bishop of Meaux, it would have been impossible that they should have preached and taught as they did in spite of all opposition, had not the Lord kept the door open, and shielded them with the arm of His strength. In His love and grace, He had determined that the gospel of His Son should be preached to the dark and blind leaders of the blind, and none could silence those whom He sent. The doctors of Paris could see nothing in William Farel but a self-confident, irreverent young man. That he should come from his little village in the Alps, and with a Bible in his hand, defy the popes, the priests, and all the fathers put together, was an unheard-of insolence. Plain speaking, “calling things by their right names,” as William said, was as intolerable a habit then as now. And to be thus summoned to try all their sayings and doings by the Bible only, was indeed a fatal test to one and all of them. Thus that day of grace passed by, the one only time in the whole history of France, when the Lord thus sent forth His glad tidings to the leaders and teachers of the nation, and the solemn question arose whether they would believe it or reject it. That old professor and that young man who spoke to them, we are told “with a voice of thunder,” had come in the name of God, and he who despised them, despised Him who sent them. It was, therefore, an awful moment in the history of that unhappy nation. When we read of the murders of St. Bartholomew, of the fearful massacres of the saints in the centuries that followed, and of God’s tremendous judgments on king and people eighty years ago, and since, we can see what a different history of France there would have been to write, had Paris believed the message which Faber and Farel brought from God.
I must now tell you the answer that the University of Paris gave to the message.
You will remember that in the time of the old king, Louis XII, the University of Paris had taken part against the monk, who said that the pope ought to have supreme authority in the church. But now times were changed. Two persons had, since the death of Louis XII, taken to themselves a large share in the affairs of the government. These two persons were the mother of King Francis, Louise of Savoy, and her favorite, Anthony Duprat, who was Cardinal Archbishop of Sens, and withal Chancellor of France.
Both one and the other had reasons of their own for hating the gospel with an extreme hatred. Louise was a woman of profligate life, and of a tyrannical temper. Duprat, who was called by a Roman catholic historian, “the most vicious of bipeds,” had become a clergyman in order to heap up riches by the many unlawful means which were always at hand for priests who were cunning enough to use them. He also was a man of dissolute habits. By opposing the gospel these two servants of Satan not only gratified their natural desires, but they also hoped to cover their evil lives with a cloak of zeal for God and the church. Louise had great influence over her son. She persuaded him to allow the pope a greater power than he had ever had before in the affairs of the church in France.
In return for the king’s friendship, the pope yielded to him the right to appoint bishops and clergymen throughout his kingdom. The king made a profitable trade of these offices, “just,” we are told, “as at Venice people made their fortunes by trading in pepper and cinnamon.” Encouraged by the hatred which Louise and Duprat showed to the preaching of the gospel, the University, the Sorbonne in particular, took courage, and consulted as to how best the preachers could be silenced.
The chief speaker in these consultations was a man called Noel Bedier, the syndic of the Sorbonne. You must remember his name, as the third great enemy of the gospel of God at that time. He was a man of mean abilities, but possessed of a loud voice, and a determination to make himself heard. He delighted in quarrels of all sorts, and was more pleased to find an enemy, than most people would be to find a friend. He had a special hatred for Master Faber, because he came from the same province, Picardy, as he himself did, and had gained a reputation for learning and talent which filled Bedier with rage and jealousy. Such an amount of ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, and hypocrisy, filled the soul of this wretched man, that Erasmus said he was like three thousand monks in one person. He spoke long, loudly, and frequently, in answer to Faber and to Farel. A crowd of monks and priests, as ignorant as their leader, listened to him with shouts of delight and approval. Some approved of him simply from stupidity, thinking that the man who had so much to say must be in the right; others, because they were delighted to hear Faber and Farel contradicted; and some because they thought anyone who spoke for the church of Rome must have the truth on his side. Bedier was too ignorant to bring forward any arguments against the gospel. He did not understand the matter sufficiently to know what he was to contradict. But he had read in some old book that the sinful woman, in Luke 7, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the sister of Lazarus, were all one and the same person, and finding that Master Faber said they were three different people, he loudly accused him to the University of being a heretic. Not only Paris, but the whole of Christendom was aroused into anger against Master Faber for holding such evil opinions. An English bishop wrote a book against him, proving that the three women were but the one Mary Magdalene. The whole University of Paris declared that Master Faber ought to suffer the punishment due to heretics. But the king, who was on bad terms with the University, was glad of this opportunity of humbling the priests and doctors. He gave orders that Master Faber was to be left in peace. Thus the Lord granted him yet for a little while an open door at Paris.
Bedier, filled with rage and disappointment, that he could not burn Master Faber, determined, however, to annoy him in every possible manner. The old doctor continued to teach amidst insult and persecution, until the month of November of that year 1519. He then left Paris, to go we know not where. It seems probable he was absent till the spring of the year 1521, when his friend the Bishop of Meaux invited him to come and help in making the gospel known in his diocese. He promised him a safe refuge, and all possible liberty in preaching and teaching. Master Faber, wearied out by his persecutors at Paris, gladly retired to the city of Meaux, having left William Farel to oppose Bedier single-handed.
Meaux is an ancient city, about thirty miles from Paris. For two years back the bishop had been very busy there, and, indeed, in all parts of his diocese. He was anxious that the truth which he had learned should be preached in every town and village. He had, therefore, gone himself into every parish, and inquired as to the preaching and the lives of the clergy. Alas! he found the same sad tale to be told wherever he went. The clergy were living to please themselves. They spent their time chiefly in amusements at Paris. They left their parishes either to curates, or to be visited by the Franciscan monks from Meaux. The curates were no better than the upper clergy; the monks were simply begging impostors, who grew rich upon the gifts of the ignorant people. “The only business of these shepherds,” said the bishop, “is to shear their sheep.” Brigonnet, therefore, forbade the monks to preach, dismissed a number of the priests, and resolved to train others, who should preach the gospel of God. In the meantime he was glad of the help of Master Faber.
William Farel may be said to have stood very much alone at this time at Paris. His friends Gerard and Arnold Roussel, and others, who had really, it would seem, believed the gospel, hoped by means of it to reform the church of Rome. To Farel this hope appeared each day to be not only a vain, but a mistaken hope. He felt that it was a time when a Christian man should cast aside every other consideration, and simply go back to the word of God. Instead of trying to find a place for the gospel of God amidst the inventions of men, he desired that all that was of man should be swept away, and that only that which was of God should remain. He longed for the time when every plant which his Father had not planted should be rooted up.
And, therefore, instead of reforming Rome, he would have no Rome. He would point men back to the days of Paul, to the upper room at Troas, to the time when there were no priests, no altars, no consecrated buildings, no vestments, no forms—but Christ. Christ only, and His blessed word. “If Christ is not enough—if His word will not keep things straight,” he would say, “how can you expect that anything you can add to it, or that ever has been added to it, will do so?” No wonder that the priests of Paris stopped their ears, and the doctors of the Sorbonne closed every door against the man who would measure them against the Bible, and that only.
And now a testing time came for the University of Paris. For two years had the gospel sounded in the ears of the priests and doctors. God would now put them to the proof. Would they have His blessed word of grace and salvation, or would they reject it? Luther, whose teaching had been condemned by the church of Rome, had appealed to the University of Paris to decide between him and the champion of Rome, John Eck. Luther and Eck had met at Leipsic to hold a public disputation as to the claims of Christ, and of the pope. Paris was to consider all that had been said on both sides, and to decide as to which of the two, Luther or Eck, had spoken the truth. Twenty copies of the arguments of each were sent to Paris early in the year 1520.
For more than a year the University consulted over these papers. “All Europe,” we are told, “was waiting for the decision of the University of Paris.” Bedier had much to say upon the subject. He, with his loud voice, his crowd of ignorant followers, and of angry priests, won the day. In April, 1521, the University decreed that Luther’s books should be publicly burnt in the streets of Paris.
William Farel could no longer have any doubt as to whether Paris had rejected the gospel. Master Faber entreated him to come to Meaux, where he might preach freely, and where there were souls longing for the bread of life. Thus William turned from the city which would have none of Christ and His word, and with a few of his friends, including the Roussels, he arrived at Meaux. There were, perhaps, none who had any thought that with William Farel’s departure, the day of grace for Paris had closed. Christ had said of His servants of old, “He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me.” Thus had Paris, in the person of that young man, despised God Himself.
But God, who can cause the light to shine out of darkness, had in His grace and power turned the senseless and ignorant speeches of Bedier into an occasion of blessing for one soul. A young nobleman of Picardy, Louis de Berquin, had for some time been remarked for his strict devotion to the church of Rome. He was a man of blameless moral character. He spent his time in study, and in attending the services of the church. He spoke strongly and frequently against the doctrines of Luther. At the same time he severely reproved the priests and monks who were living in sin, and making a gain of religion. He hated meanness and hypocrisy, and seems to have been, however mistaken, thoroughly honest and sincere. He listened to the arguments between Bedier and the teachers of the gospel at Paris, and though he did not believe that Faber and Farel were right, he was roused to anger by the false arguments and the blustering of Bedier and the monks, and above all, by their malicious endeavors to annoy and misrepresent those whom they could not prove to be in the wrong. On the other hand, he found that Faber and Farel were at least outspoken and real, and that they appealed to the Bible to prove all they said. Thus Berquin, disgusted with the priests, and perplexed by the plain statements of Farel, betook himself to the reading of the Bible, and as he read, the light broke in upon his mind. We shall hear of him again by-and-bye. In the meantime let us return to William Farel.