There was much to be done at Geneva during that spring. All had to be put on a new footing. The schools were to be put into good working order. The habits and ways of the people were in need of a great change for the better. Rioting, drunkenness, and disorders of all sorts, had been only too common in the old days of popery. The house of the bishop’s vicar had been a scene of vice and profligacy, which had spread corruption not only amongst the priests, but amongst many of the townspeople. The council desired that the life of the citizens should do honor to the gospel.
But even those who were truly converted to God, had much to learn. We are not to suppose that the moment a man is saved, he sees clearly, merely from the fact that he is a saved man, what are the things which are according to the holy and perfect will of God. As to his habits and practice, he has to learn carefully, diligently and prayerfully, from God’s blessed Word, how he ought to walk and to please God. And “by reason of use,” his senses become “exercised to discern both good and evil.” Such an one is said, (see Hebrews 5:1414But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Hebrews 5:14)) to be “of full age.” The newly converted man, or woman, or child, has to go as a little child to the Word of God, to learn the mind of God. Natural conscience is not a safe guide. For our thoughts are not as God’s thoughts, and our own ideas of what is right and wrong are far below the standard which God has given us. What is that standard? Christ Himself. The study of Christ is not a matter of a day, or a week, or a year. Nor are those parts of the Word of God, which relate to our daily practice, learned and understood in a moment, and unhappily those parts of the Bible are very often neglected by many who carefully study all that relates to matters of faith. It is quite true that belief must come before practice; that the foundation must be laid before the building can be begun; but if we study the first chapters of the epistles to the neglect of the last chapters, if we study the prophecies to the neglect of the book of Proverbs, we shall, without intending it, bring a terrible reproach upon the name of Christ, by our evil and foolish sayings and doings.
The truly converted man who, from ignorance of these parts of God’s Word, has no better measure of right and wrong than his own untaught conscience, will constantly slip into little habits of dishonesty, selfishness, and untruthfulness; of unkindness, idleness, and folly, which will “cause the apothecary’s ointment to send forth a stinking savor.” In such cases, the world will call it hypocrisy, but it is really very often that such a man, sincere at heart, has been trusting to his own natural sense of right and wrong, and perhaps imagining that he would be “putting himself under the law,” by diligently studying the directions God has given for the walk and behavior of His saints.
These were the difficulties which now rose up in the path of William Farel. The gospellers were as yet but imperfectly taught in the Word. And those who had left popery without being converted to God, imagined that freedom from the rule of the priests meant only liberty to do as they chose. They gladly gave up the fast days and the penances, but they meant to have in exchange the feasting and drinking in which heathens would delight. And it was not at all according to their ideas of the rights of a free citizen, that they should have William Farel preaching against swearing and gambling plays and masquerades. And it was a black day for them when the council, advised by William Farel, forbade all these things to be done, and sent a trumpeter through the town to warn all the tavern-keepers that if oaths and bad language, cards or dice, dancing or profane songs, were heard of in their houses, they would be punished by the laws of Geneva. Nor did they like to hear that all taverns were to be closed on Sundays, and also on week days during the hours of preaching.
Thus there were many who were beginning to think that the gospel was a greater tyranny than the rule of the duke and the bishop. Liberty to serve God is no liberty to the unsaved sinner. His thought of freedom is the service of Satan. Rather would he feed swine in the far country, if only he could get enough to eat, than feast in the father’s house.
Complaints soon came from another quarter. The King of France, who claimed some authority over a small territory in the state of Geneva, heard that the inhabitants had been called to take an oath of obedience to the new laws. He wrote two letters to the Council of Geneva. The one was to say they were not to command any new practices in religious matters, in the parish of Thye. The other was to desire them to release Father Furbity from his prison. The council replied, “As to Thye, there, and in all other places where we have authority, we do not intend to enforce any new practices contrary to the honor and glory of God. We are certain that He, in His grace and mercy, has delivered us from those who had taught a new religion. And we most humbly entreat your majesty, for the honor of God, to send us any number that it may please you of the most excellent of your numerous wise and learned doctors, that they may show us by our Lord Jesus Christ, by His prophets, apostles, evangelists, and servants, speaking in His Holy Word, in what matters of Christian doctrine and practice we have erred from the truth. And this being thus proved to us, we are willing, not only in our parish of Thye, but everywhere else, to order and do as the Word of God commands, and also to punish those who shall teach to the contrary.”
With regard to Father Furbity, the council agreed to set him at liberty, if he would be willing to retract his evil words. He was therefore brought from his prison, and he promptly said, “Noble and honorable gentlemen! It is true that when I came to this town I did not know the state of affairs, and I said things which displeased you, and which were wrong. In consequence I have suffered according to the will of God. I ask your pardon; and I promise that in future I will endeavor to lead a better life, and to preach the truth better than I have done heretofore.” After making this humble speech, Father Furbity was allowed to go in peace, and he gladly departed from the city of Geneva.
On the 21st of May the Council of Geneva called the citizens together. Having consulted with William Farel, they had determined to put the question to them, whether they would now decide for popery or for the gospel. The council-general was therefore to speak for the citizens. They met together in the great church, or rather the cathedral of St. Peter; there where the blood of the young Huguenot had stained the pavement in the days of Peter Wernli.
Claude Savoye rose and spoke to the assembled crowds. “He reminded them of the flight of the bishop, the arrival of the gospel in Geneva, the glorious deliverance granted to the city, and then he added, in a voice that was heard all down the nave, “Citizens! Do you desire to live according to the gospel and the Word of God, as it is preached to us today? Do you declare that you will have no more masses, images and idols? No more popery? If anyone knows, and wishes to say, anything against the gospel that is now preached to us, let him do so.”
There was for a while a deep silence; then, in a loud and solemn voice, one of the citizens answered, “We all, with one accord, desire, with God’s help, to live in the faith of the holy gospel, and according to God’s Word, as it is preached to us.” Then the people held up their hands, and said, “We swear to do so. We will do so, with God’s help.”
This was saying a great deal. And as we read it, we are reminded of the Israelites who swore before Mount Sinai, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” We know what was the end of that. At the same time we should remember that the Christians of Geneva were not ignorant as the Israelites were, that grapes will not grow upon thorns, nor figs upon thistles. Farel had taught them very far ‘otherwise: “Man is evil, and unable to do any good thing... and the more he has the form of righteousness and holiness, the more is he wicked and guilty, and unclean; he is a corrupt root, and an evil tree, that can bear evil fruit only, for all that is in him is corrupt, all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart only evil, and that continually.”
The meaning, therefore, of this pledge was not so much that each person, saved or unsaved, undertook to love and serve God, but rather that the citizens of Geneva thus owned that the preaching of the gospel was not forced upon them by the council against their will. It was as much as to say, that it was with their full and free consent that the mass was abolished, and the gospel put in the place of the old popish forms and beliefs; that henceforward the Word of God was to be to them the rule and standard, not rubrics and canons, decrees of councils, and commands of popes.
The council then ordered an inscription to be fixed over one of the city gates, and afterward over the entrance to the town hall, that all men might see what was the faith which was owned by Geneva:
“The tyranny of the Roman Antichrist having been overthrown,
And its superstitions abolished in the year 1535
The most holy religion of Christ
Having been restored in its truth and purity.
And the Church set in good order
By a signal favor of God;
The enemy having been repelled and put to flight;
And the city by a striking miracle restored to liberty;
The senate and the people of Geneva
Have erected and set up this monument,
In this place;
As a perpetual memorial
To attest to future ages,
Their gratitude to God.”
This inscription was to be to Geneva as the stone of Ebenezer. And we cannot but be thankful that the city which had driven forth Farel as a “heretic and devil,” not four years before, was now willing to confess Christ before all men, and to return public thanks to God for the gospel He had sent them by the messenger they had despised and hated.