It must have been about the beginning of the year 1519 that Master Faber and William Farel were first brought into the fuller knowledge of the gospel of God. This was the beginning of a stormy time in the University of Paris. “Great was the uproar,” we are told, “amongst the students when Jesus Christ was thus preached by James Faber. They began to occupy themselves almost as much with the doctrines of the gospel as with their studies and comedies.”
We are told also that some amongst them united to give battle to the old professor, and to defend the doctrine of salvation by works. These were, as we find it in almost every case, those amongst them whose lives were the worst.
They felt that the gospel condemned their evil deeds, and therefore talked much about good ones. “St. James,” they said, “did not agree with St. Paul, but taught that people were saved by their doings.” “Saint James,” replied Master Faber, “says in his first chapter that every good and perfect gift cometh down from above. Can you deny that salvation is a good and perfect gift? that righteousness is a good and perfect gift? It is true works are a necessary sign of faith, just as breathing is a necessary sign of life. But a man breathes because he is alive. If he did not breathe you would know he was dead. A man is justified by faith, and works then follow as a necessity.” Master Faber did not stop here, he went on to explain how a holy God could, in justice, thus deal with guilty sinners. Not alone save them in His love and mercy, but also act in justice, and give to sin its due punishment.
He could punish sin and spare the sinner. “Wonderful exchange!” he said; “the Innocent One is condemned, and the criminal acquitted! the Blessed One is cursed, and he who was cursed is blessed! the Life dies, and the dead live! the Glory is covered with shame, and he who was put to shame is covered with glory! And all from God’s free and sovereign love. Those who are saved, are saved because God chose it—by grace, by the will of God, not by their own will. Our own choice, our own will, our own works, are useless; it is the choice of God that alone is the cause of our salvation. When we are converted, it is not our conversion that makes us to be God’s chosen people, but it is the grace, will, and choice of God that makes us to be converted people. And not converted people only. God makes us to be members of the Body of His Son, so that we are filled with Himself, for in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Oh, if men could but understand this privilege, how purely, how holily, would they live. They would look upon all the glory of this world as disgrace. They would delight themselves in that glory which is hidden from the eyes of the flesh.” Thus taught Master Faber, and henceforth there were in the University of Paris two parties—those to whom the preaching of the cross was foolishness, and those to whom it was the power of God. William Farel drank in with delight the words of his dear old master, now dearer to him than ever, for he was one of those who had brought him to Jesus.
“Now,” he says, “everything appeared to me as in a new creation. Scripture became clear to me, the light shone in upon my soul. A voice, till now unknown — the voice of Christ, my Shepherd, my Master, my Teacher, now spake to me with power. God, pitying our error, taught us that He only, by Christ, the propitiation for our sins, by Christ, the Mediator and the Advocate, blots out our transgressions for His own sake, inasmuch as they are all cleansed by His blood. To Him alone I clung, after having been tossed about through many troubles, but having now reached the one haven. There is no approach to the Father but by Jesus. If any man put all his trust in Him, he hath eternal life. The artificial outward religion, which leaves the heart uncleansed, became displeasing to me—the observing of days, the choosing of meats, the forbidding to marry. I saw in these things no traces of true piety, but only garments, sounds, and ceremonies, borrowed not only from the Jews, but from the Gentiles, and from idolaters, and I saw that these ceremonies are put in the place of piety and the true worship of God. I read the Scriptures in order to find out the cause of this. I saw that the thoughts of men, their efforts and their inventions, can by no possible means exist together with the true worship of God. Piety therefore, the gospel, the law of God, which is love, have all departed—only the human leaven remains, which is hypocrisy. Nothing has failed of the things which Christ foretold concerning the frightful delusion which should arise in His name. Now do we behold those who bear the name of Christ, but are lovers of themselves, seeking their own interests, laying aside all that belongs to piety. There are many noises, countless chants, words uttered without intelligence, and men who serve not the Lord, but their own belly.” So spake William Farel. Yes, Christ was now his Master and his Teacher. Master Faber was but as one of the messengers who had brought to him the message of peace. “There is but one Foundation,” said the old man, “one Object, one Head—Jesus Christ, blessed for evermore. Let us not call ourselves after Paul, or Apollos, or Peter. One is our Master, even Christ.”
Thus stood matters in the schools of Paris—on the one side, the astonished and angry doctors and scholars: on the other side, Master Faber, William Farel, and—Christ.
About nine months passed by after Master Faber had thus turned from the legends of the saints to preach Christ only. During that time he taught diligently the things of the Lord, as he had opportunity. It was in vain that he was contradicted, opposed, hated, and despised, by a great number of the priests and doctors. It seemed as though all this signified nothing to him, which was indeed the case. The Lord had set before him an open door, and no man could shut it. Various events were so ordered by God that Master Faber was never silenced, and was even encouraged to hope that the truth would at last be owned by many who heard it. In the first place several years before, the king, Louis XII, had called upon the University to decide whether the pope ought to have absolute power in the affairs of the church. A monk had written a book to prove this, and as the kings of France had for centuries maintained the right of the Church in France to appoint bishops there, Louis XII was not prepared to own the pope’s authority in every point. The University of Paris had decided the question against the pope. It was not always easy to see whether men opposed the pope for their own ends, or because they saw that the Bible condemned him. Master Faber, perhaps, thought sometimes that the light was beginning to dawn, when it was only natural pride and self-will that were at work. But it was really the case that several amongst the students began to hear the word gladly. Thus there were streaks of light appearing on every side, and had we lived then, we, too, might have thought that the truth would at last be owned by the miserable, fallen church that had so long rejected it.
At last one came to listen, from whom Master Faber and William hoped great things. This was Count William Briconnet, bishop of Meaux. He had known Master Faber in former days, and respected him for his learning. He had provided him with a home in his abbey of S. Germains, where since the year 1507 the old man had found a quiet retreat, and where he had studied far more peaceably than he could have done amongst the students of Paris. Since then Briconnet had been twice sent to Rome, as ambassador from the king of France to the pope. There was now a new king —Francis I, Louis XII had died Jan. 1, 1515. There was also a new pope; Julius II had died two years before Louis XII. The new pope could not be called a “ferocious monster.” He was a pleasant, gentlemanly man, fond of art and science, and still more fond of luxury and pleasure. He lived to indulge himself in every possible manner, right or wrong—“in wickedness of all sorts,” says a Roman Catholic historian who knew him. The words of this historian are as follows: “We remember having had, and having adored, a pontiff, who arrived at the height of infidelity. He gave full proof of this by the practice of wickedness of all sorts, for he confessed before some of his servants that neither before he was pope nor after did he believe in the existence of God. Cardinal Bembo once tried to prove to him from Scripture that the soul of man is immortal. He said in a rage, ‘What! you pretend to convince me by a book of fables!’ He stirred up war all over Europe, in order to further the interests of his family.” It is therefore not surprising that the two visits paid to this pope—Leo X—by the bishop of Meaux, did not confirm him in the belief that the pope was to be honored as God. He came back sickened by the revels and feasts of the pope’s palace, and betook himself to his old friend, Master Faber. He was thankful, too, to make the acquaintance of William Farel. Several other young men, amongst them two called Arnold and Gerard Roussel, appeared also to have received the gospel. With this little company the bishop studied the word of God, and listened humbly and meekly to the teaching he now heard for the first time. He could not express his joy and thankfulness that the light of the gospel had thus reached him.
Master Faber entreated the bishop to study the Bible for himself, and thus to learn what Christianity was, before man had added to it or taken from it. The bishop read much and fully. He said he could never have enough of such heavenly food. He only wondered that everybody did not see, as he did, that the new teaching was the truth of God. He spoke of the gospel and of the Scriptures to all his friends. Many of these were also friends of the king, and were much at the court. The king’s physician, and even his confessor, appeared to listen gladly, and to desire to learn more. All this encouraged Faber and Farel, and was perhaps one reason why Farel did not at once see his way to stand aloof altogether from the church of Rome. He and Master Faber still went to the cathedral and to the churches. It was true, as William said, that popery fell little by little from his heart. But though it fell slowly, it fell surely and steadily. The forms and ceremonies, the chanting and the idolatry, seemed to him, as time went on, more intolerable and wearisome, more profane and sinful. When the crowds were kneeling before an image or an altar, Farel stood amongst them in sorrow and displeasure. “O God!” he would say, “Thou alone art wise! Thou
alone art good! Nothing must be taken away from Thy holy law, and nothing added. For Thou alone art the Lord, and Thou alone must command!” The beautiful services which had been the delight of his heart, were now only hateful And grievous. The priests and doctors whom he had revered, now only appeared to him as the enemies of the gospel. He had seen the glory of Christ, and in the luster of that light all else was dark to him. Master Faber began to be alarmed lest William should go too far. If they had at that time begun to talk over the necessity of leaving the church of Rome, it was a point upon which they could not see alike. There are many of God’s servants who have at last to say, “We would have healed Babylon, but she could not be healed!” Of this number was Master Faber. He clung to the hope that the church he still loved and revered might be “made new”—that priests and people would at last turn from their idols to the living and true God. They had not heard the gospel before, but now that God had put the blessed message into his mouth, who could say what the power of that word might be? Let them only go on, teaching boldly and faithfully, at the risk of opposition, and suffering, and death, and the church of Rome might yet be cleansed and restored, and all might be as in the days when Paul preached the gospel, and man had not yet added to it. Soon an event happened which no doubt confirmed Master Faber in his hopes of better days.
The king’s sister, Margaret, duchess of Alencon, was already celebrated for her great talents, her kindness of heart, and her extraordinary influence over the king, her brother. Margaret was a friend of Briconnet. She talked freely to him and to others about the court, who were beginning to hold the “new opinions.” Some of her ladies gave her tracts, which Briconnet had given to them. She read them eagerly, for her heart was sick and weary amidst the folly and gaiety of her brother’s dissolute court. She now desired to see Master Faber and William Farel, and to read the word of God with them and with the bishop. And thus it would seem that the Princess Margaret was really converted to God. She did not cease to be a papist, nor did she follow the Lord fully in any way, for she knew Him but very dimly. Still we cannot but think of her as one who, after a sorrowful and doubtful course, will yet be found amongst the number of those who now sleep in Jesus. In any case it is certain that she used her influence with her brother, the king, on the side of the truth. She encouraged those who preached it, and, as far as she had power, she protected them from persecution and opposition.
The king himself, too, was by no means inclined to silence Faber and Farel. This also may have raised vain hopes in the mind of Master Faber. He may have thought that the king was almost persuaded to be a Christian. But in the case of Francis, it was simply dislike to the tyranny of the priests, which made him rejoice that anyone should dare to contradict them. “I like to show,” he said, “that a king of France is not to be kept in leading strings.” He despised the priests, too, for their ignorance, and their dislike to learning. They even spoke against printing as a wicked invention of the devil, and accused the printers of being wizards. Francis I, who was an intelligent man, and who took an interest in all these new discoveries, seems at first to have looked upon the gospel as one of the modern inventions, which was to improve the world in general. It was only later, when he found that it condemned his vices and his crimes, that he thought otherwise. He discovered in time that the evil deeds which the priests allowed, and for which he could buy pardons from the pope, were condemned unsparingly by the gospel, and it then needed all the entreaties of his beloved sister Margaret, to prevent him from siding with the priests he hated, in order to put it down. But at first it was not so, and Master Faber hoped on.
Then, again, there came cheering news to Paris from across the Rhine. A German monk had dared to teach and preach openly, as early as the year 1517, that the pardon of sins was not to be bought with money, but was given by God to sinners, without money and without price. That to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ was the way to be saved. He had even dared to post up a paper upon the doors of the church at Wittemberg, warning people not to buy the pardon of their sins from the pardon-seller. He had been stirred up to do this, because the pope, Leo X, had opened a market for the sale of pardons. He had sent pardon-sellers through the towns and villages of Europe, to offer for money such pardons as no pope had ever sold before. People might buy pardons, not only for past sins, but for sins they meant to commit. Each sin had its price, and might be committed without fear or shame, if paid for beforehand. The souls of the dead might be redeemed from purgatory on the spot, for a small sum. All this money was to go towards the restoration of the church of St. Peter’s at Rome. “How profitable,” said the pope, as the large sums were paid into his coffers which the pardon-sellers brought back, “How profitable has this fable of Jesus been to us!” For it was not only the church of St. Peter, but the feasts and amusements of the pope, for which large sums of money were needed. To the rich was the pope’s gospel preached, and those who turned a deaf ear to the gospel of God from heaven, listened to the gospel from Rome.
The German monk spoke boldly against this sale of the souls of men. He had not the light and knowledge which William Farel had; but he was an honest and a brave man, and, as far as God had enlightened his mind, he spoke out, and wrote papers and books which were spread far and wide. About the year 1519 they reached Paris, and the little band of Christians read them eagerly, and thanked God for them. This German monk was Martin Luther. But it was not from the teaching of man that William Farel had learned to know Christ. Whilst many were ready to believe every word which Luther wrote, William again betook himself to prayer. He searched the Scriptures, and compared them with Luther’s books. Instead, therefore, of becoming a follower of Luther, he raised his voice against the errors which Luther still held and taught. At the same time, he joyfully owned the truth of much that Luther wrote. But he could not rejoice in seeing that Luther’s books were read by many who could not distinguish between truth and falsehood. “The gospel in France is hindered,” he wrote, three or four years later, “by the reading of Luther’s earlier writings, which admit, in a measure, the adoration of saints, and the existence of purgatory. These errors were condemned amongst us some years back, even in the public preaching.” “Amongst us,” refers, no doubt, to the “little flock” of believers at Paris. We find that they met together for prayer and worship, and for the reading and preaching of the word. We find also that Farel himself was the chief preacher amongst them. “We have had no preachings since you left,” wrote one of them in the year 1524; how have things changed since your departure! The old traditions are brought up again; the word of God is neglected, and the faithful only explain it in fear and trembling. Gerard Roussel has paid us but one or two visits, and that without preaching. Oh, that you would come to our help!” Such are the little glimpses that we possess of the short time, during which William Farel stood forth at Paris as the Lord’s witness against all that was of man, whether taught by a Romish doctor, by the great Luther himself, or even by Master Faber. For Master Faber still believed in purgatory. He was still beclouded as to many blessed truths. And William Farel had to learn how true is the word, “One is your Master, even Christ.”