But it was not from Master Faber—it was not from a learned doctor, that help was to come. All we know is, that some words were spoken which came as a ray of light from the glory above, shining down into William’s dark and troubled soul. From whose lips those words of grace were sent, is now known to God alone. There were some of the Lord’s little flock in the hidden corners of Paris, poor and despised, and who are long ago forgotten. We know not who they were, but, says William, “they made mention of the gospel. And God knows how, by the most contemptible, He helped me to know the power and the value of the death of Jesus. And when I first heard of these things, for three years and more I prayed to God that He would give me grace to understand the right way. I compared what I heard with the Greek and Latin Testaments, reading them often upon my knees. And I talked over these things with great and small, seeking only to be taught, without despising any.” It may have been some poor serving man, some poor old woman in a garret of the great city, who had now become the teachers of the young professor. For William became during these years a Master of Arts, and lecturer on philosophy in one of the chief colleges of Paris. But these hidden and despised ones had spoken to him of “the value of the death of Christ,” and that one ray from the glory of the grace of God had made all else dark and dim—that wondrous treasure of the love of God was alone worthy of his thoughts and of his desires. Could he but learn that which the angels desire to look into, all the learning of the doctors of Paris would be to him as dung and dross. “The value of the death of Christ!” Have you known it? The value of that precious blood of the Son of God to Him who gave His Son? Do you know it by looking up to heaven and seeing at God’s right hand the One to whom that glory is His due reward? Be sure, if you have any knowledge of the value of that blood, you will have no doubt as to your welcome into that bright glory, for that blood was shed for you. You will want no other title to be there. You will not think that prayers, or tears, or doings, or feelings, need to be added on to that which is priceless in the eyes of God. And if that blood is not your title to the glory, you have none besides.
It would seem that it was not for some time that William opened his heart to Master Faber. But in the meanwhile his reverence for his old master daily increased. “Inasmuch,” he says, “as Master Faber had a great deal more learning than all the doctors of Paris, he was persecuted by them for that reason, and I began thereby to see the meanness of those doctors, and I esteemed them no longer as I had done. And as that poor idolater (Master Faber) was thus the cause of my ceasing to revere the doctors, so also by his word he turned me from the false thought that I could deserve anything from God.” Yes, it was this question which had perplexed William Farel during those “three years and more.” For if the death of Christ, and that only, saves the sinner who trusts in Him, of what value, then, are his works, and his repentance, and his prayers, and his alms? What answer would Master Faber give to that? “He said,” William tells us, “we have no merits at all; all is of grace, and of God’s pure mercy, granted to those who deserve nothing. And this I then believed as soon as he told it me.” Yes, Master Faber too, “that poor idolater,” “made mention of the gospel!” He had even written these things so early as the year 1512, in his commentary on the Epistles of Paul.
But it was a book but little read, and as to teaching this precious truth, Master Faber seems to have kept it hidden in his heart, half buried, too, beneath a pile of saint-worship and idolatry. This appears to us very hard to understand. But the fallen mind of man is a strange mystery. Like the man who at first “saw men as trees walking,” so it would seem had Master Faber felt the touch of Christ, and the light had shone dimly into his soul, to become clearer and brighter by a second touch of which I now must tell you. “One,” says Farel, “for whom I thank God, spoke to me about worship—that we should worship God alone.” No saints, no images, no angels—God only. Yet Master Faber was still hard at work writing the legends of the countless saints. And when the year 1519 began, he published the legends of all the saints for every day of January; and when February came, the legends of the February saints were published also. But March came and went, and no legends appeared. A change, as sudden as it was extraordinary, had come upon the old professor. It would seem that amidst his toilsome work, the hand of Christ was again laid upon his dimly seeing eyes. He was seized with fear and horror at the words he read in the legends, and at the prayers addressed to the saints. Master Faber gathered them together, and cast them away once and forever. “They are brimstone,” he said, “to kindle the fire of idolatry. We must pray to saints no more. We must worship God alone.”
And now with a fuller light from the glory shining into his soul, did Master Faber begin to teach to all around that which he had seen and heard. He did not do this in his public lectures, for he was only a professor of philosophy, and his lectures were therefore limited to explanations of the old books of the heathen. But in private conversations, it may be in private meetings for preaching, such as had then begun in Paris, he spoke boldly and faithfully of his blessed Lord. “God,” said the old man, “God alone by His grace, through faith justifies the ungodly. He gives unto them eternal life. There is a righteousness of works, which is of man; there is a righteousness of grace, which is of God. The righteousness of grace comes from God Himself. It is a righteousness that comes from God to man. It is not a righteousness which man brings to God. Just as the light comes from the sun, and we receive it with our eyes, so does this righteousness come down from God Himself. The light is not in our eyes, but in the sun. The righteousness of God is revealed to us, and men are justified, that is, they become righteous by believing in Him. Just so a mirror becomes bright with the rays of the sun, and reflects back the light which shone upon it from heaven. It is the image of the sun that it reflects; it has no light of its own.”
“Why, then, should we do good works at all?” asked the Paris doctors. “If we are made righteous by God without doing good works, it is in vain to do them.”
“It is true,” said Master Faber, “we are justified without doing good works. We are justified when we have done nothing at all but bad works, and before we have done one good one. We are justified the moment we believe in Jesus. But just as a tarnished mirror will reflect the light of the sun dimly and imperfectly, so, if we are unholy in our walk and conversation, do we dimly reflect the light which has shone upon our souls from God. We should be as clean and polished mirrors, in which God is seen reflected.”
It was as if a thunderbolt had fallen amongst the doctors and students of Paris when these wonderful words were spoken. Many of them rose in opposition—some were lost in wonder at the old professor. But there was one meanwhile, who was lost in wonder, not at Master Faber, but at the sight of that blessed One who was now revealed to his soul, who now shone down upon him in His wondrous grace, the Justifier of the ungodly!
William Farel saw neither Master Faber, nor the angry doctors, but Jesus only.
I would ask you to think, before you read further, whether such a moment as this has ever come to you. You may have been trying to “be good,” with a restless, uneasy conscience, and yet with a feeling of satisfaction, thinking that however you broke down, you were at least “doing your best.” You hoped God would take this into account, and, being merciful and kind, would perhaps at last consider you fit for heaven, or at least too good to go to hell. And in the midst of all this, has God awakened you to see Jesus? Has He opened your eyes to see that Holy One at His right hand—the One, the only One, with whom He is well pleased? Do you know Him as the One who has borne your sins once and forever, so that God can look at you and say you are whiter than snow?
Thus it was with him who came from the far country, bringing nothing with him but his sin and his need. Did his father tell him to wash and mend his ragged garments and so make himself fit to come in? No. There was no fitness which he could bring to his father. That which made him fit must come from the father himself, who had endless treasure and endless love. Therefore the father himself it was who brought out the best robe, and put it on him, and made him fit to sit with him at his table, and to be the delight of his father’s heart.
William did not receive all this truth at once. That he was saved by grace, through faith, was the first thing that was clear to him. But must it follow that saint worship and the mass were sins in the sight of God? Must all that had been to him holy and venerable fall at a blow? and could he turn his back upon the pope and all the priests together, who commanded these things?
“Popery,” he says, “only fell down in my heart by little and little; at the first assault it was shaken, but it did not fall. I was very slow in owning the dignity of the word of God, and submitting to Him alone. I was very slow in seeing that all that is not according to that word is an abomination in the sight of God. It was no easy task to weed out of my heart that which was so deeply rooted in it. I found in my experience, and I know others have found it too, that though the kine, which were made by the power of God to leave their calves, went straight along the road in which God led them, yet they lowed as they went, because of the calves they left behind. And thus it was with me. Though the word was plain, and I felt that I must obey it, and could not evade it, yet I could not turn my back on the things that the pope commanded without bitter sorrow, for those things were very dear to me. I would have liked to walk in God’s road and take them with me too, but I could not. And I found that others who set out in the same road, and could not make up their minds to leave their calves behind, but took them in their company, did so at the cost of terrible injury to the church of God. They have been as Jeroboams in the church, setting up calves beautiful to behold. But it was Jeroboam who brought division and sorrow, and made Israel to sin. And what we need is that God should give us Josiahs who will cast down the calves and their altars, and thus draw the hearts of His people away from all that is not His pure gospel. For however terrible will be the judgment upon the pope and his priests, a judgment more terrible than upon any sinners who were before them, still more bitter wad more terrible will be the judgment of those who make their boast of the gospel, and yet in life and in doctrine turn aside from God’s holy word. Better had they remained in the corruption of popery, and in the vile abominations of the monasteries.”
Farel was right, and his words should stir us up to consider whether we, who so often think ourselves rich and increased with goods, and needing nothing, may not be amongst those of fair profession who will at last be spued out of the mouth of Christ. Better indeed had we never come out of the darkness of popery.