It was towards the end of April, 1538, that the two preachers were driven forth.
Were there none in Geneva who grieved for their departure? We are told that there were many. The work which God had done there was a real work. And the greater and more real the work, the greater will be the resistance of Satan.
For a time all appeared to be in ruins. And when the preachers were gone, Geneva, the gospeller’s city, was for a while, as far as man could see, in the power of an enemy far more deadly and more powerful than the Duke of Savoy. All was in disorder—blasphemy and riot, drunkenness and strife, were on all sides. Farel said that the thought of Geneva was a burden to him which he must cast wholly upon the Lord. He determined to banish from his heart all remembrance of the terrible days he had gone through, and to look to Christ, only entreating Him to glorify Himself and to bring good and blessing out of the misery and ruin.
Of all that he had suffered—and many had been his sufferings, nothing had been so intensely painful to him as the ingratitude of those whom he loved so fervently. He wrote from time to time to the little flock, making no reference to his sufferings or to their conduct towards himself. He simply entreated them to humble themselves before God, that He might restore them and bless them.
After various wanderings, Farel and Calvin arrived wet and weary at the city of Basle. One of them had been nearly drowned in fording a river on the way there. Farel went to lodge with a printer. He felt for the first time in need of rest.
But his rest was of short duration.
In the month of July his old friends at Neuchâtel wrote to him, entreating him to come and live amongst them. Their affectionate letters cheered and comforted him. But he could not consent to be the pastor of the little flock at Neuchâtel unless he were free to go elsewhere whenever the Lord should call him. This being promised him, he returned to the quiet little town, where he was warmly welcomed, and where he said but for the thought of Geneva he was truly happy.
And for the remainder of his long life, as far as he could be said to have a home, that home was Neuchâtel.
But the heart of man, whether at Geneva or at Neuchatel, whether your heart or mine, is ever the same.
Both Calvin and Farel had rightly learned from the Bible that the Lord has ordered needful discipline to be exercised in His Church. Not very long after Farel’s return to Neuchâtel, a storm arose on this subject. A lady who had quarreled with her husband, and refused to live with him, appeared at the Lord’s table. Farel gave public notice that she could not be received there. Friends were not wanting who took the part of the lady, and very soon many of the citizens determined that the matter should not rest till Farel was banished from the city. Farel was ready to go rather than allow dishonor to the name of Christ.
But this time those who cared for the glory of God were the stronger party. Farel remained, and the lady was declared to be no longer in communion with the people of God.
Meanwhile Calvin, after three years’ banishment, had been recalled to Geneva.
There, we are told, “he set to work to frame, or rather to complete, the Genevan republic.” He desired it to be “a reproduction of the Old Testament state of society,” says his historian.
The history of Geneva has now ceased to be the history of Farel, and we may thus leave it, only referring to it further on one or two occasions.
In 1542 we find Farel at Metz, preaching to three thousand at a time in the churchyard of the Dominican monks. In vain the monks rang bells and raised riots. The voice of thunder rose above the din.
Just at this time the plague broke out at Metz. Many of the people fled, but for Farel it was a reason why he should remain. In the midst of sickness and death, insult and persecution, he labored on.
One of his prayers at Metz has been written down by one who was present.
“Lord, thou knowest the cruelties which have been heaped upon Thy servants. We see the earth around us stained with blood, the dead bodies of Thy servants cast forth, fire and smoke rising to the heavens, Thy people slaughtered on every side. But for all vengeance we entreat but one thing only—that Thy word should have free course, and that Satan should be confounded. Grant our prayer, O Lord! for what are our goods and our bodies in comparison with souls—and those souls which thou hast redeemed—those souls which are, some of them, longing after Thee, though they know Thee but very little! Let none be owned, eternal Father, but Jesus, Thy Son, that mention may be made of none other, that nothing may be taught, or done, or said, or thought, otherwise than He has commanded and ordained.”
It was said in those days, no prayers were like the prayers of Farel. All who heard him felt that he was speaking to God, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
We hear about this time of his being nearly strangled by a party of women, in the neighborhood of Metz, and soon after attacked by a body of armed men, whilst breaking bread there with three hundred believers. On this occasion he was so severely wounded, that he had to be nursed for a while in Strasburg before he could move.
Next we hear of his arrival at Geneva, on a visit to Calvin.
Times were changed at Geneva. Calvin was not merely a preacher of the gospel, but he was fast becoming the ruler of the republic, honored and obeyed by all the more orderly of the citizens.
Farel’s faded suit of clothes, torn and worn, told the tale of his hardships and poverty. The council ordered that a new suit should be given him.
But Farel desired to be independent of the council and the citizens. He would still be free to speak his mind to them, cost what it might. He refused the suit in a respectful manner.
It is pleasant to find Farel as of old, nothing more than “the shabby preacher,” sent forth, staff in hand, on the Lord’s errands, and depending upon Him alone. It was a higher place than to be “dictator of the republic of Geneva.”
Calvin kept the suit, and wrote afterward to Farel that it was waiting at his house till someone could be found who would take it.
He would gladly have persuaded Farel to come back and settle in Geneva. But the Lord had clearly marked out another path for His servant—a path that was less noticeable to the eyes of men, and which left him in the shade, whilst Calvin was gaining for himself a name that should rank with that of Luther.
It was a very true friendship which Calvin had for Farel. Having failed to draw him back to Geneva, he hoped that the Council of Berne would make him a professor at Lausanne. He would then be near him, and in a post of honor.
But honors of this world were not for Farel. Berne looked coldly upon him; they remembered how he had resisted the decree as to the holidays, the fonts, and the bread.
Happily for Farel, he was left to go on his way, untrammeled by professorships or dignities, “the bondsman of the Lord Jesus Christ.” He said that the only title he desired was “preacher of the gospel of God.”
Years passed by, and Farel labored on.
We hear of him at Montbeliard, again at Metz, and at Geneva, in Germany, and in various French towns near the borders of Germany and Switzerland.
At last, in 1553, when he was sixty-four years old, the tidings reached Geneva that Farel was dying at Neuchâtel.
Calvin, who so fervently loved him, hastened to his side; he stayed with him for a few days, and then he left him; he could not bear to see him die.
But the Lord answered the prayers of many of His people, and Farel recovered. In a little while he was preaching as before.
In the autumn of that year Calvin again sent to entreat his old friend to come to Geneva. It was on a sad and sorrowful occasion.
A Spaniard, called Servetus, had been for some years preaching, teaching, and writing many blasphemous errors. Amongst others, he taught that the Lord Jesus Christ is not Himself, God. Servetus led away many of the Libertines of Geneva. They were glad of an opportunity of contradicting and opposing Calvin, who had spoken strongly against the awful blasphemies of Servetus.
So far Calvin was acting as a faithful servant of God. But you will remember that Calvin’s desire was to lead back Christians, in a great measure, to the place of the Jews in the Old Testament times. He desired Geneva to be “a reproduction of the Old Testament state of society.”
He not only believed that God’s people now should be placed under the law of the ten commandments, but also that the punishments of the law should be executed as in the days of Moses.
He was fully persuaded that heretics and blasphemers ought to be put to death, according to the commandment in Leviticus 24.
It was not strange that Calvin should thus have mistaken the Lord’s mind. He, as well as all other professing Christians, had been brought up in the belief that heresy was to be punished with death. It was one of the errors which had been taught for centuries by the church of Rome. If sins against man, such as murder, were thus to be punished, much more, said the teachers of Rome, ought men to be put to death who commit the greater offense of sin against God.
There was something which sounded well in this argument, nor can we rightly deny that sin against God is a deeper offense than sin against man.
But the Lord Jesus had foreseen that His people would draw the further conclusion that therefore heretics, professing Christianity, should suffer capital punishment. He had told His disciples that Satan should sow tares amongst the wheat, and that His servants would desire to root them up. But that His mind was, that both should grow together until the harvest. They were to leave them still to grow in the field (which is the world) until He should separate the tares Himself, and bind them in bundles to burn them.
But the church which had turned away from the teaching of Christ, which had gone back to Jewish thoughts and ways, to altars and sacrifices, to priests and vestments, went back also from grace to the law, in the treatment of heretics and blasphemers.
They took upon themselves the burning of the tares. It is not for us to boast ourselves in this matter, as having on our part understood and obeyed the words of Christ. We, too, have misunderstood His parable, and have too often accustomed ourselves to think that He was warning His disciples against making any distinction in church fellowship between the believer and the unbeliever—between those sound in the faith, and those who teach and believe error—between those who live soberly, righteously, and godly, and those who are living to please themselves, in defiance of God’s mind and will.
We, on our part, have made out the field to be not the world, but the church. For the priests of Rome then, and for the Protestants of England now, such verses as 2 Thessalonians 3:14-1514And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. 15Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. (2 Thessalonians 3:14‑15), and Titus 3:10-1110A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; 11Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself. (Titus 3:10‑11), would teach useful lessons.
To the priests, that to avoid and reject from Christian fellowship those whom we hope by this means to restore, is a very different thing from killing them.
To Protestants, that to receive such persons at the Lord’s table, and into Christian fellowship, is an act of disobedience to Him who has told us in these cases to avoid and reject.
But Calvin had not unlearned all that Rome had taught him, nor in this matter had Farel either. Both one and the other fully believed that the Council of Geneva, who at last brought Servetus to trial, were right in condemning him to death.
The sentence pronounced upon him was that he should be burnt alive.
Strange to say, none has more gladly seized this opportunity of condemning Calvin, than the Roman Catholic historian who has written his life. We might suppose, in reading it, that to burn heretics was an atrocity which had never before entered the mind of any one professing Christianity, and had certainly found no parallel in the merciful acts of Rome.
Alas, we know the tale that history tells, and you will no doubt remember that within five years of the burning of Servetus hundreds of fires were lighted in the streets of England, kindled by the Roman priests!
And not only so, but these fires were kindled not to burn the tares, but the wheat; for the servants who had become deaf to the words of their Master, now called the tares wheat and the wheat tares.
Calvin was at least more merciful, if not more enlightened, than the Council of Geneva. He earnestly entreated that Servetus might be beheaded, instead of being burnt; but his request was refused.
And he then entreated Farel to come, to make one last effort to bring the wretched man to repentance.
Farel came. He visited Servetus in his prison, and entreated him to own Christ as his God. But it was in vain.
Farel then besought the council, as Calvin had done, that he might at least be put to death in a merciful manner. But the council again refused.
Farel had the horrible task of walking by the side of Servetus to the place of execution. In vain he spoke to him of the God he denied. Servetus clung to his error till he could speak no more. Farel returned sorrowfully to Neuchâtel. This happened in 1553.
The Libertines took occasion of the death of Servetus to raise a fresh complaint against Calvin.
This was unjust; for had Calvin never returned to Geneva the council would have taken the same course which they had now done with regard to the burning of Servetus. But it was easy to stir up against Calvin all those who hated him for those matters in which he was a faithful servant of God. Calvin was on the point of leaving the city.
Farel heard of the storm that was rising. He hastened again to Geneva, and preached in unsparing words of rebuke. He then returned to Neuchâtel as quickly as he had come.
The Council of Geneva was beset by the enraged leaders of the Libertines, and so far yielded to their demands, that Farel should be punished for his audacity, that they gave them a letter to the Council of Neuchâtel.
It was to require that their faithful pastor should be given up, and sent to Geneva for his trial. The Libertines hoped that he might be sentenced to death.
Calvin sent to warn Farel of the designs of his enemies. The old evangelist set off on foot, and in the midst of storm, wind, and rain, he appeared at Geneva, of his own accord, to answer for himself.
A scene followed which must have brought back to his mind his first visit to Geneva more than twenty years before. Again he found himself in the midst of a crowd of enemies, furious and bitter as the priests in the council chamber of the popish vicar.
Again he was deafened by their yells and shouts of vengeance.
“To the Rhone!” sounded from all sides of the council-room. And chief amongst his enemies was Ami Perrin, the same who had gone years before to the vicar’s house, to defy him to contradict the sermons of Anthony Froment.
Of him Farel said that he was the pillar of the taverns.
It is well for us to bear in mind such men as Ami Perrin. It is easy to be a zealous Protestant, whilst the heart is filled with enmity to God. There is enough in popery to rouse up the natural resistance of the heart to all restraint and tyranny. But the heart of man hates the restraint of the Word of God and the authority of Christ, more than any restraint on the part of man. Had Farel been nothing more than a Protestant, he might have been the hero of Protestant Geneva. But it was the reproach and rejection of Christ that he was called to share, and the world, whether Popish or Protestant, who rejected the Master, must needs reject the servant also.
Still there was a remnant even in Geneva; there were those who had believed the gospel he had preached to them, and who loved him fervently. One after another gathered round him, and dared his enemies to touch a hair of his head.
The old man was allowed to speak in his own defense. There was a power in his words that reached the hearts even of his enemies, of Ami Perrin amongst the rest. The council listened to him with respect and awe.
When he had done speaking, the larger number of the council declared him innocent of all charges brought against him. They said he had only acted as a faithful servant of God, and they accepted his reproofs and warnings.
Ami Perrin owned that Farel was in the right.
All then gave him their hands, as a sign of reconciliation, and they invited him to dine with the citizens in public, as a token of friendship, before he left the city.
After this better days dawned for Geneva. The light and the darkness had been in deadly conflict there, but the light so far prevailed that Geneva became a bright spot amidst the thick fogs and shadows of Christendom.
You may remember how just after this, the gospellers’ city became a refuge for the many persecuted saints who fled from England and Scotland during the reign of Mary. It was there that many of them were cheered and refreshed, and when better times came for England they returned with fuller light and clearer thoughts of the gospel of the grace of God. Farel had learned to know many of them, and had much happy fellowship with them, and with many also who had fled from his own country. The name of Geneva was henceforward to stand in honorable contrast with the name of Rome.