William Farel’s father was not pleased at his son’s desire to study, but William gained his point. He first tried to find someone who could teach him Latin. In this he failed. His teachers proved very ignorant; they were probably the priests who lived in the neighborhood. As all the services in the churches were in Latin, you might suppose that Latin was just the one thing the priests would know; but it was not so. The country clergy learned to repeat the words of the mass-books, but it had not been the custom amongst them to learn to understand the language they daily used. We may judge from the description given of the clergy by one of themselves, who lived just at that time, that they were sunk in vice and ignorance. The name of this clergyman was Nicholas de Clemangis.
A bishop in Germany, who also lived in those days, thus described them:- “The modern and unhappy clergy addict themselves to temporal things, being destitute of divine light. They love themselves, neglect the love of God and their neighbor; they are worse than worldly men, whom they destroy, together with themselves. They are addicted to pleasures and infamous practices. By the lives of such wicked clergymen the people come to be disobedient and irreverent towards the church; they are seduced by blind guides, who — oh, shame! — are ignorant idiots, proud, covetous, hypocritical, luxurious, envious, and so forth. At banquets, taverns, plays, and theaters, they are more frequently found than in places dedicated to God. The bishops adorn their bodies with gold, while they defile their souls with impurity. They account it a shame to employ themselves with spiritual matters, and their glory is to meddle with those things that are vile; they take by violence other men’s goods; they bestow the goods of the church upon their kindred, upon stage-players, flatterers, huntsmen, and wicked persons.”
Amongst such men did poor William seek in vain for a tutor. He was bitterly disappointed. But the discoveries he made amongst them, as to their ignorance of Latin, formed but a small part of his disappointment: it grieved and troubled him yet more, to find that they looked upon the services they chanted, and the forms they used, with utter irreverence, if not contempt. William says he sought everywhere—in monasteries, and out of them—for some priest or monk who seemed to be real and earnest in the religion he professed. “I was searching,” he said afterward, “for someone who should excel the rest in idolatry, and I was filled with horror at those who worshipped in the popish churches without the deepest reverence.” William, therefore, had two objects in desiring his father to send him to the University of Paris. He might there find amongst the learned priests some who worshipped God and the saints with entire devotion; he would also be able there to learn and study to his heart’s content. After much persuasion, his father consented, and William set out on the long journey to Paris.
It was in the year 1509 that William Farel persuaded his father to send him to Paris. He was then 20 years old. The education his parents had given him had, as far as religion was concerned, fully answered the purpose for which they intended it. Whilst most around them were careless and indifferent, William was a strictly religious young man. He tells us, “In truth popery itself was not, and is not, as popish as my heart was. It was not that wickedness or evil, when I knew them to be such, had any charm for me, nor did I take pleasure in those whom I knew to be living in sin. But the devil was to me transformed into an angel of light, and I do not believe that all the devils together could have more completely deceived and enchanted any poor heart than they did mine. The devil had entirely turned me away from God, from the truth, from the right road, from Christian faith and doctrine, so that I had renounced God, I had turned my back upon His chief commandments, I was given over to the service of Satan, and so deeply rooted in it that I could never have delivered myself, for so utterly had Satan blinded my eyes and perverted my soul, that if there was anyone who had the approval of the pope, that person was to me as God. If I heard anyone speak with contempt of the pope, or anything belonging to him, I could have wished that that person should be destroyed, and that all that did not serve to uphold the pope should be demolished.”
William must have heard many contemptuous words spoken of the pope around his home at Les Farelles. Ever since he was five years old there had been constant wars between the kings of France and some of the Italian States. The French soldiers were continually passing and repassing the Alps, quite near the town of Gap. The kings themselves had passed near his home, and he must have heard much of what was going on in Italy. Strange tales were brought back by the soldiers about the popes, whom they had been used to respect as being “God upon earth,” till they went themselves to Rome.
Innocent VIII, who had caused the murder of the Waldenses, had been called away to render up his account to God three years later. His memory was cursed by the people of Rome, because he had neglected the poor, and spent the money of the State upon his family. The French soldiers had, many of them, seen his successor, Alexander VI, the awful history of which wicked man is better left untold; but Farel must have heard the terrible story of his death, which was repeated far and wide.
He had invited some cardinals to a feast, having poisoned some wine or sweetmeats which he meant to give them. His wicked son, who was a cardinal and archbishop, joined with him in this murderous plan. The pope was in want of money, and the wealth of these cardinals would fall into his hands at their death. Murder was nothing new to the pope and his son. Many had been the murders committed in the pope’s palace, the Vatican, by the hands of these two wretched men. But this time the judgment of God fell upon the murderer. The servants, either by mistake, or having been bribed by the cardinals, gave the poison to the pope and his son. That night the pope died, having called for the sacrament as a passport into the presence of God. The cardinal, his son, recovered, after a severe illness, to add to the list of his crimes.
It was this pope, of whose crimes murder formed but a small part, who first declared that he could give full and complete forgiveness of sins. Why did he say so? It was one of his plans for getting money, for the forgiveness of sins was sold to those who would buy it. And all that had the name of the church of God had turned from Him—that spotless One, who gives complete forgiveness, perfect salvation, without money and without price, to buy their pardon from a criminal whose vices filled Rome with horror.
And now the pope, Julius II, whom William Farel revered as if he were God Himself, what was he? In the words of the Roman Catholic writer from whose book I relate to you these awful histories, he was “a prodigy of vice.” The same writer tells us that he was “abhorred by the Italians as a ferocious monster, warlike, turbulent, bloody, and an enemy of peace.” Did not these things shake the faith of William Farel? No, when he heard of the evil deeds of the popes, he tells us, he would “gnash his teeth like an angry wolf.” That any could so slander the man who was to him as God. Yes, as God; for it was this last pope, Julius II, who proclaimed at the great general council held in Rome, at the Lateran, that to him “all power was given in heaven and in earth!”
Well may the writer from whom I have quoted say, “It will be seen that the life of a great number of popes has been such, that it would be insulting the Holy Spirit to pretend that it was by His guidance these monsters of vice were chosen, and placed as heads over the Christian church.” But William Farel was, like you and like me, when in our natural state, without understanding. “There is none that understandeth.” How true is this word of God, and how seldom is it believed!” I thought myself,” he says, “to be a true Christian, just on account of those things which proved me to be further from Jesus Christ, and from the faith of a Christian man, than the heavens are far from the earth. I was so plunged in the mud and mire of popery, so deeply buried in the depths of it, that all that is in heaven and in earth could not have dragged me out, had not the God of Mercy, the tender and loving Savior, Jesus Christ, drawn me forth in His great grace, by the power of His gospel of salvation. I see and feel, in looking back at my faith in crosses, pilgrimages, images, dead bones, and other devilish deceits, how deeply I was sunk in the dark pit of iniquity, of idolatry, and of the curse of God. But when I think specially of the idolatry of the mass, it seems to me that legions without number of the devils of hell must have possessed me, and kept me in their power. Otherwise, how could I have been so utterly perverted from all that God has said—from all that the holy Scripture commands us to believe and to hold! For I believed that what the priest held in his hands—the thing that he put in a box, and shut it up there—that he ate and gave to others to eat—I believed that this was my God—the only true God! And to me there was no other in heaven or in earth. Could I more openly renounce God, and take the devil for my master? could I more plainly oppose myself to the word of God than in thus giving myself up to a lie, and doing just the contrary to that which God has commanded? Oh, the horror I have of myself, and of my sins, when I think of it! For there can be nothing said, or done, or thought, in hell, more abominable to God than this idolatry, for which, as a true servant of the devil, I was willing to suffer, in body and in soul. O Lord, if only I had served Thee, and honored Thee, in true and living faith, as Thou didst command, and as Thy faithful servants have done; instead of giving up my heart to idolatry, to bow down before that piece of bread! I honored and worshipped it, thinking that Thou, the good, wise, and true God, wert pleased with such wickedness, such madness, such a blasphemous lie against the truth. I knew not that I was as far from the true faith of a Christian, as that god of paste was far from Thee. And in following the Satanic teaching of the pope, and doing all that the devil commands by his mouth, I thought myself all the more Thy true servant. And those who were deceived as I was, seeing me such a complete idolater, loved me, and valued me, and esteemed me, thinking me a person devoted to Thee, as I thought also, when in truth I was serving the devil of hell, and considering myself worthy of Thy favor on account of my wickedness. For Satan had so lodged the pope and popery in my heart that I cannot think the pope ever had as much faith in himself as I had in him, for at times, as I have heard, he has some degree of misgiving as to whether his doings are good and holy, and I had none.”
Such, then, was William Farel when he arrived in the great city of Paris to seek for knowledge. He little knew what was the knowledge he was to find there!
But before I tell you this second part of his wonderful history, I would ask you for a moment to look back at the two pictures which have been placed before you in the last few pages. You see the popes, sunk in every form of vice and crime, living shamelessly in open sins, so gross and so vile, that amongst the heathen they would have been seen with horror and disgust; and, on the other hand, you see young William Farel living what man would call a blameless life, and devoted to what he believed to be the service of God. Why does the one picture appear to you so much blacker than the other? Do you say, “Because the popes were hypocrites, and William Farel was sincere?” In that respect there was, it is true, a difference between them. But look in the 1st Epistle to Timothy, and there you will see that the apostle Paul says that according to the righteousness of the law he was blameless; that he obtained mercy because he sinned ignorantly and in unbelief; that he verily thought he ought to do things contrary to the name of Jesus; yet calls himself, or rather, God calls him, “the chief of sinners.” And so also William Farel, when the Holy Spirit had taught him the mind of God, could say of himself, “I was filled with all the devilish idolatry of popery, in which respect I know none who could have equaled me, so that in truth, amongst’ all whom I have known, it is I who would have won the crown of curse, of torment, of death, and of damnation, for I was wholly employed, by day and by night, in the service of the devil.”
I would wish you to observe, that it was only when God taught him, that Farel thus judged of himself. Man would never have judged of sin in this way. Men could look in horror at Alexander VI and Julius II, whilst they looked with pleasure and admiration at William Farel. And why? Because, to man, sins against men appear black and evil, sins against God appear of no account. When the popes committed murder, and adultery, and theft, men with their natural eyes could see something amiss; but what did it matter to them how it stood between man and God? A bad servant will judge of his fellow-servants by their conduct to him, but he will bear with their dishonesty or disrespect towards his master. And so with you and me. Unless God has shed abroad His love in our hearts, our consciences will not reproach us for sin against Him, for unbelief in His great salvation, for following the commandments of men as to His worship and service; and when we do have pricks of conscience, it will be for the smaller matter of sin against our fellows.
Do not mistake me, as though I meant to say that dishonesty, or lying, or unkindness, or malice, or envy are small sins. Quite the contrary. But the great and crowning sin—unbelief in what God has said, believing what man has invented rather than the sure word of God—is little thought of, and the strong language of William Farel will appear to many in these lukewarm days far too strong: for how many are there not amongst us who are esteemed and respected for their goodness, who see no harm in people “agreeing to differ” as to the truth God has made known, who like everyone to be free “to have their own opinions,” who “will not split hairs,” as they say, “about matters of belief,” and are all the more admired and liked because of these sayings which Satan has put into their mouths! God looks for the man, or woman, or child who is truly anxious not to turn aside half, or a quarter, or a hundredth part of a hair’s breadth from His holy word in belief or in practice. May you who read this be that person!