(Continued from p. 128.)
FAREL had not been long at Basle when he FAREL leave to propose some questions for the consideration of the University. The matter he chiefly wished to put before them was this, “The Word of God is enough.” The University refused to allow this discussion. Farel then asked leave of the Town Council to put forward this subject in a public meeting. The Council published a notice that he was to do so. This notice was a remarkable one. It was to say that a Christian man, and brother, William Farel, had by the “gift of the Holy Ghost, drawn up some articles which were not unseemly, but conformable to the gospel, and useful, not hurtful to men.” That he desired a public conference to these articles. That his request was granted The University forbade all priests and students to be present. The Council then published second notice, to the effect that “all priests, pastors, preachers, students, and members of the University were ordered to attend this meeting under penalty of losing their benifices if they refused to do so, or of forfeiting the protection of the government.” A large multitude were thus assembled. Erasmus himself was present.
Farel then put forward thirteen articles. The first was, “Christ has given us the most perfect rule of life, to which we can add nothing, from which we must take away nothing.” The second declared that it was an ungodly thing to belong to any party or faction, or to frame other directions for our conduct than those contained in the words of Christ. The third, that all distinctions of dress or food, all forms and ceremonies, are Jewish, and contrary to gospel light. In another article he says that a Christian teacher should give himself up entirely to the study and teaching of the word. In another, that to say the directions given by Christ are merely “expedient,” not binding, or on the other hand to say anything is binding because we think it expedient, is the teaching of Satan. In another, that to seek to save or justify ourselves by our own strength and our own merit is putting ourselves in the place of God. In another, that as to the worship of God we are to abstain from idolatry, and from all that does not proceed from the Holy Ghost.
The words of the last article are, “Our polestar is Jesus Christ. By His power all things are to be ruled—no other star is to be put in His place. That this should be done henceforward, we may hope, when we see all things restored to the primitive order of the gospel, and all strife between Christians laid aside, the peace of God ruling in their hearts.”
Farel then began his address with these words, “I am persuaded that every Christian man has nothing better to do than diligently to seek into the truth, that truth of which Christ spoke when He said, ‘I am the truth.’” He proceeded to entreat all who called themselves pastors and teachers to look into their own belief, and see if it would bear the light of that truth. “Let it be brought forth into the light,” he said, “and compared with the word of God. To this I exhort you, I entreat you, for the sake of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, who has so solemnly commended to us the care of one another.”
When Farel had spoken, an answer was expected from the priests, but not one came forward. Hausschein stood up boldly with Farel and challenged them to appear. But in vain—all were silent. Those who loved the gospel in Basle praised and thanked God for this meeting. “Farel is strong enough,” they said, “to destroy the whole Sorbonne single handed.” “Much good,” we are told, “came of this meeting.” Farel was strong in the power of the Holy Ghost.
It was a simple message which he had to deliver, “The Word of God is enough.” But these six words, believed and acted upon, would have destroyed not the Sorbonne only, but the whole great pile of corrupt Christianity. Not popery only—but how much besides! Were these words now believed by all who profess and call themselves Christians, not only would there be no Popery, but there would no longer be the many hundred sects of Protestantism. We often read in books, “The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants.” Would that it were so! Is it true that Protestants have nothing but the Bible to show as the rule of their faith and practice? Alas, just as we read of Abijah, king of Judah, that he boasted of his religion before the army of Jeroboam, so, too often, have Protestants boasted themselves before the Papists. “As for us,” Abijah said, “the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken Him.” Yet when we look in the book of Kings we find that this same Abijah walked in all the sins of his father—and what were they? They were the same sins as those for which he blamed the people of Israel—he too had “high places, and images, and groves on every high hill, and under every green tree.” As long as Protestants have amongst them the inventions of men, which divide them into sects and parties, which grieve and hinder the Spirit, and cloud and dim the blessed work and person of the Lord Jesus Christ, their right place is that of humbling themselves before God, rather than of boasting before men. The Protestant men or women who say, “I can’t say I am saved, but I am doing my best, and hope I shall be some day,” are speaking the language of Rome as much as the monk or nun whom they pity as poor misguided Papists. They too have added to the blessed gospel, “salvation is for me if I do my best to deserve it.” And how much have they not added besides that!
Just about this time some terrible news arrived at Basle. The messengers who brought the evil tidings were a German knight called Esch, a young prebend of the cathedral of Metz, and several other Christian men who had fled from that city. Farel’s heart was filled with grief and thankfulness—grief at the sufferings of God’s dear people, and thankfulness that they were thus found faithful when tried in the fire of persecution. I told you that John Leclerc had taken refuge at Metz, bearing upon his forehead the marks of the Lord Jesus—that he worked there at his trade as a wool comber, and spent his spare hours in teaching from house to house the gospel he had learned from Master Faber and from Fare!. He was soon encouraged in his labors by the help of an Augustine friar called Châtelain, who had been lately converted to God. And in the spring of 1524, just when Farel had arrived at Basle, a strange tall monk, riding on an ass, had appeared at Metz, and had begun to preach the gospel. He was driven away at the end of a fortnight, but Leclerc and Châtelain continued to preach and teach. Through them had the knight Esch, and the young prebend, Peter Toussaint, been brought to Christ. Many others too believed and were saved. Thus the work of God was carried on for a short time with wonderful power and blessing.
But a great holiday of the papists was at hand. Every year, on a certain day, the people of Metz made a pilgrimage to a chapel about three miles from the town. This chapel contained images of the Virgin, and of the chief saints of the country. The people believed that by worshipping there on this festival, they gained a pardon for their sins. The evening before this great day a man came silently into the chapel in the dusk. It was John Leclerc. He had been pondering over the words of the Scripture, “ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images.” He was filled with shame, and grief, and horror, at the thought that the next day the multitudes who called themselves by the name of Christ, from all the country round, would be falling down before these idols of wood and stone. He believed that God had spoken to him in those words of the law. He took down the images, one and all. He broke them into small pieces, and scattered them before the altar. He was all night in the chapel, thus employed. At day-break he returned to Metz. In the morning the great procession started, with banners, drums, and trumpets; priests in their gorgeous dresses, monks and guilds, crosses and bells. The priests went first into the chapel, and came out with horror-stricken faces to tell the awful sight they had beheld. No one doubted that Leclerc had been the criminal. Some persons had seen him, in the early morning, coming into the town. He was at once seized. He made no secret of what he had done. He said, “I did it, that you might worship God alone.” He was taken before the judges, to whom he said, “Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. God only is to be adored.” He was sentenced to be burnt alive. To add to this punishment, his flesh was first to be torn off with red-hot pincers. Leclerc was unmoved. He was carried to the place of execution. His right hand was first cut off. I will not describe to you the awful tortures which followed. It must have been a work of hours. The monks surrounded him with yells of fury. And meanwhile Leclerc, with a loud and solemn voice, repeated the words of God— “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of mens’ hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not; feet have they, but they walk not, neither speak they through their throat. They that make them arc like unto them, so is every one that trusteth in them. O Israel, trust thou in the Lord; He is their help and their shield.” Such was the last sermon of John Leclerc, preached in the slow fire in the streets of Metz.
Châtelain was next seized. His fingers were scraped with a piece of glass, that “he might no longer have the power to sacrifice, consecrate, and bless, which he received by the anointing of hands.” He was then burnt, as Leclerc had been. And the Knight Esch and his friends fled, and went to Basle. This was the sad news which reached William Farel just as he was leaving Basle to visit Zwingli, and other preachers of the gospel, in German Switzerland. He was absent but a little while, but during that time his enemies at Basle made the most of their opportunity to stir up the city against him. At the head of these enemies was Erasmus. The name of Balaam stung his guilty conscience. Farel had neither sought him nor avoided him. Had he done either, Erasmus would have been better pleased. “I am only sorry,” he said, “that I ever wasted a word in disputing with him. He would have thought me a shining light if I would have said the pope is an antichrist, and human ordinances are heretical, and forms and ceremonies heathenish abominations. He calls himself a friend of the gospel, but I never beheld such a proud, censorious, insolent man. I have learned his character so well that I consider him neither worthy of being my friend nor my enemy.” Erasmus did, however, so far consider Farel worthy of being his enemy, that he succeeded in persuading the governors of the city that dangerous tumults would be caused if they allowed such a heretic to remain.
The first thing Farel heard when he returned from his visits was that he was banished from the city. This was a great sorrow to many in Basle, who had learned from him the blessed gospel of God. Hausschein was indignant. He missed his beloved friend, and he grieved that they should no more hear from him the truth the Lord had so wonderfully taught him. Farel took Esch as his companion, and went to Strasburg. The Lord had been working in a remarkable manner in that city. I would advise you to read a book containing the history of several of God’s dear servants who were then living there. It is called “Tales from Alsace.” You will be able to imagine, when you have read it, how warm a welcome William Farel received there. It was like the visit to Gaius’ house, of which we read in the “Pilgrim’s Progress” —a rest and refreshment by the way. And now Farel was to enter upon fresh labors. Though he had preached at Meaux, and in Dauphine, it would seem as though he had never regarded himself as specially called by God, to give himself up to the preaching of the gospel, till he went to Basle, He says he had held back from taking the place of an evangelist, hoping that God would send forth more worthy and gifted men. But his talks with Hausschein on this subject had led him to the conviction that God had meant him to go forth as a preacher wherever a door should be opened. “Hausschein,” he says, “frequently exhorted me to preach, calling upon the name of the Lord.” In other words, “commending him to the Lord in prayer.”
Some, who think it a terrible thing for men to preach who have not been ordained, have called this Farel’s ordination. It would be well if all Christian men, and women too, were thus to “ordain” one another, and that frequently, as we each one, if believers in the Lord Jesus, have our special work given to us by Him, and we each need the prayers of our brethren, and of our sisters. We should commend one another to the Lord, and provoke one another to love and to good works, after the example of Hausschein, whenever we have the opportunity of doing so. Other historians imagine, though without any record or tradition to build upon, that Farel must have been ordained at Strasburg. We find, however, later that when he met with believers at Montbéliard to break bread in remembrance of the Lord’s death, some even of his friends were displeased because he was only a layman. A “sacrament” without a clergyman was strange, and even wrong, in the eyes of those who had been brought up in popish thoughts of priests and consecrations. And how slow even now are many of God’s people to receive His word in all its simplicity! “For,” as Farel says, “instead of looking to God and His word, we are apt to look to ourselves, and our reason, and that which suits our own judgment appears to us to be more for edification, for (as it would seem) we see better what serves to edification than God. Himself does, for, according to our notions, everything would be ruined if the ordinances of God were observed without any addition on our part, but our prudence, beyond that of God, will build things up. But let us not be so mad and so foolish, so arrogant and so presumptuous, as to think we can render the Word of God and His holy sacraments more worthy, and more sightly, and more full of grace and power by anything we can add to them, or by anything we can do, for in fact we can do nothing, if we put our hand to it, but spoil and pervert everything by our own inventions.”
To return to our history. Farel, who now felt that the Lord Himself had called him to be a preacher, was ready to obey. The people of Montbéliard, who had heard of him, desired him to come amongst them. Their prince, the young duke Ulric of Würtemberg, also consented to Farel’s preaching the gospel freely at Montbéliard. The Lord had set before him an open door, and thus we find that in July, 1524, Farel left Strasburg, and entered on his new field of labor. F. B.