History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume III Part 51

[723] Sed radius desuper a sole vibratus, justificatio est. Ibid.

[Sidenote: EFFECTS ON FAREL--THE CROSS--ELECTION.]

Farel listened earnestly to this teaching. These words of salvation by grace had immediately an indescribable charm for him. Every objection fell: every struggle ceased. No sooner had Lefevre put forward this doctrine than Farel embraced it with all the ardour of his soul. He had undergone labour and conflicts enough to be aware that he could not save himself. Accordingly, immediately he saw in the Word that G.o.d saves freely, he believed. "Lefevre," said he, "extricated me from the false opinion of human merits, and taught me that everything came from grace: which I believed as soon as it was spoken."[724] Thus by a conversion as prompt and decisive as that of St. Paul was Farel led to the faith,--that Farel who (as Theodore Beza says), undismayed by difficulties, threats, abuse, or blows, won over to Jesus Christ Montbelliard, Neufchatel, Lausanne, Aigle, and finally Geneva.[725]

[724] Farel. A tous seigneurs.

[725] Nullis difficultatibus fractus, nullis minis, convitiis, verberibus denique inflictis territus. Bezae Icones.

Meanwhile Lefevre, continuing his lessons, and delighting, as Luther did, in employing contrasts and paradoxes containing weighty truths, extolled the greatness of the mysteries of redemption: "Ineffable exchange," exclaimed he, "the innocent One is condemned and the criminal acquitted; the Blessing is cursed, and he who was cursed is blessed; the Life dies, and the dead live; the Glory is covered with shame, and He who was put to shame is covered with glory."[726] The pious doctor, going still deeper, acknowledged that all salvation proceeds from the sovereignty of G.o.d's love. "Those who are saved,"

said he, "are saved by election, by grace, by the will of G.o.d, not by their own. Our own election, will, and works, are of no avail: the election of G.o.d alone is profitable. When we are converted, it is not our conversion that makes us the elect of G.o.d, but the grace, will, and election of G.o.d which convert us."[727]

[726] O ineffabile commercium!......Fabri Comm. 145, verso.

[727] Inefficax est ad hoc ipsum nostra voluntas, nostra electio: Dei autem electio efficacissima et potentissima est, &c. Ibid. p. 89, verso.

[Sidenote: SANCTIFICATION OF LIFE.]

But Lefevre did not confine himself to doctrines alone: if he gave to G.o.d the glory, he required obedience from man, and urged the obligations which proceed from the great privileges of the Christian.

"If thou art a member of Christ's Church, thou art also a member of his body," said he; "and if thou art a member of Christ's body, thou art full of the Divinity; for in him dwelleth the fulness of the G.o.dhead bodily. Oh! if men could but understand this privilege, how chastely, purely, and holily would they live, and they would look upon all the glory of this world as disgrace, in comparison with that inner glory which is hidden from the eyes of the flesh."[728]

[728] Si de corpore Christi, divinitate repletus es. Fabri Comm. p.

176, verso.

Lefevre perceived that the office of a teacher of the Word is a lofty station; and he exercised it with unshaken fidelity. The corruption of the times, and particularly that of the clergy, excited his indignation, and became the subject of severe rebuke. "How scandalous it is," said he, "to see a bishop asking persons to drink with him, gambling, rattling the dice, spending his time with hawks and dogs, and in hunting, hallooing after rooks and deer, and frequenting houses of ill-fame![729]......O men deserving a severer punishment than Sardanapalus himself!"

[729] Et virgunculas gremio tenentem, c.u.m suaviis sermones miscentem.

Ibid. p. 208.

CHAPTER III.

Farel and the Saints--The University--Farel's Conversion--Farel and Luther--Other Disciples--Date of the Reform in France--Spontaneous Rise of the different Reforms--Which was the first?--Lefevre's Place.

[Sidenote: FAREL AND THE SAINTS--THE UNIVERSITY.]

Thus taught Lefevre. Farel listened, trembling with emotion; he received all, and rushed suddenly into the new path that was opening before him. There was, however, one point of his ancient faith which he could not as yet entirely renounce; this was the invocation of saints. The best spirits often have these relics of darkness, which they cling to after their illumination. Farel was astonished as he heard the ill.u.s.trious doctor declare that Christ alone should be invoked. "Religion has but one foundation," said Lefevre, "one object, one Head, Jesus Christ, blessed for evermore: alone hath He trodden the wine-press. Let us not then call ourselves after St. Paul, or Apollos, or St. Peter. The cross of Christ alone openeth the gates of heaven, and shutteth the gates of h.e.l.l." When he heard these words, a fierce conflict took place in Farel's soul. On the one hand, he beheld the mult.i.tude of saints with the Church; on the other, Jesus Christ alone with his master. Now he inclined to one side, now to another; it was his last error and his last battle. He hesitated, he still clung to those venerable men and women at whose feet Rome falls in adoration. At length the decisive blow was struck from above. The scales fell from his eyes. Jesus alone appeared deserving of his wors.h.i.+p. "Then," said he, "popery was utterly overthrown; I began to detest it as devilish, and the holy Word of G.o.d had the chief place in my heart."[730]

[730] Farel. A tous seigneurs.

Public events accelerated the course of Farel and his friends. Thomas de Vio, who afterwards contended with Luther at Augsburg and at Leipsic, having advanced in one of his works that the pope was the absolute monarch of the Church, Louis XII. laid the book before the university in the month of February 1512. James Allmain, one of the youngest doctors, a man of profound genius and indefatigable application, read before the faculty of theology a refutation of the cardinal's a.s.sertions, which was received with the greatest applause.[731]

[731] Crevier, Hist. de l'Universite de Paris, v. 81.

[Sidenote: PEACE AND JOY.]

What impression must not such discourses have produced on the minds of Lefevre's young disciples! Could they hesitate when the university seemed impatient under the papal yoke? If the main body itself was in motion, ought not they to rush forward as skirmishers and clear the way? "It was necessary," said Farel, "that popery should have fallen little by little from my heart; for it did not tumble down at the first shock."[732] He contemplated the abyss of superst.i.tions in which he had been plunged. Standing on the brink, he once more surveyed its depth with an anxious eye, and shrunk back with a feeling of terror.

"Oh! what horror do I feel at myself and my sins, when I think of these things!" exclaimed he.[733] "O Lord," he continued, "would that my soul had served thee with a living faith, as thy obedient servants have done; would that it had prayed to and honoured thee as much as I have given my heart to the ma.s.s and to serve that enchanted wafer, giving it all honour!" In such terms did the youthful Dauphinese deplore his past life, and repeat in tears, as St. Augustine had done before: "I have known Thee too late; too late have I loved Thee!"

[732] Farel. A tous seigneurs.

[733] Farel. A tous seigneurs.

Farel had found Jesus Christ; and having reached the port, he was delighted to find repose after such terrible storms.[734] "Now," said he, "every thing appears to me under a fresh aspect.[735] Scripture is cleared up; prophecy is opened; the apostles shed a strong light upon my soul.[736] A voice, till now unknown, the voice of Christ, my Shepherd, my Master, my Teacher, speaks to me with power."[737] He was so changed that, "instead of the murderous heart of a ravening wolf, he came back," he tells us, "quietly, like a meek and harmless lamb, having his heart entirely withdrawn from the pope, and given to Jesus Christ."[738]

[734] Animus per varia jactatus, verum nactus portum, soli haesit.

Farel Galeoto.

[735] Jam rerum nova facies. Ibid.

[736] Notior scriptura, apertiores prophetae, lucidiores apostoli.

Ibid.

[737] Agnita pastoris, magistri, et praeceptoris Christi vox. Ibid.

[738] Farel. A tous seigneurs.

Having escaped from so great an evil, he turned towards the Bible,[739] and began to study Greek and Hebrew with much earnestness.[740] He read the Scriptures constantly, with ever increasing affection, and G.o.d enlightened him from day to day. He still continued to attend the churches of the established wors.h.i.+p; but what found he there? loud voices, interminable chantings, and words spoken without understanding.[741] Accordingly, when standing in the midst of a crowd that was pa.s.sing near an image or an altar, he would exclaim, "Thou alone art G.o.d! thou alone art wise! thou alone art good![742] Nothing must be taken away from thy holy law, and nothing added. For thou alone art the Lord, and thou alone wilt and must command."

[739] Lego sacra ut causam inveniam. Farel Galeoto.

[740] Life of Farel, Geneva and Choupard MSS.

[741] Clamores multi, cantiones innumerae. Farel Galeoto, Neufchatel MS.

[742] Vere tu solus Deus. Farel Galeoto, Neufchatel MS.

Thus fell in his eyes all men and all teachers from the height to which his imagination had raised them, and he now saw nothing in the world but G.o.d and his Word. The other doctors of Paris, by their persecutions of Lefevre, had already fallen in his esteem; but erelong Lefevre himself, his beloved guide, was no more than a man like himself. He loved and venerated him still; but G.o.d alone became his master.

[Sidenote: FAREL AND LUTHER.]

Of all the reformers, Farel and Luther are perhaps those whose early spiritual developments are best known to us, and who had to pa.s.s through the greatest struggles. Quick and ardent, men of conflict and strife, they underwent the severest trials before attaining peace.

Farel is the pioneer of the Reformation in France and Switzerland; he rushes into the wood, and hews down the aged giants of the forest with his axe. Calvin came after, like Melancthon, from whom he differs indeed in character, but whom he resembles in his part as theologian and organizer. These two men, who have something in common with the legislators of antiquity,--the one in its graceful, the other in its severe style,--built up, settled, and gave laws to the territory conquered by the first two reformers. If, however, Luther and Farel approximate in some of their features, we must acknowledge that the latter resembles the Saxon reformer in one aspect only. Besides his superior genius, Luther had, in all that concerned the Church, a moderation and wisdom, an acquaintance with the past, a comprehensive judgment, and even an organizing faculty, that did not exist to the same degree in the Dauphinese reformer.

Farel was not the only young Frenchman into whose mind the new light then beamed. The doctrines that fell from the lips of the ill.u.s.trious doctor of Etaples fermented among the crowd who listened to his lectures, and in his school were trained the daring soldiers who, in the hour of battle, were to contend even to the foot of the scaffold.

They listened, compared, discussed, and keenly argued on both sides.

It is probable that among the small number of scholars who defended the truth was young Peter Robert Olivetan, born at Noyon about the close of the fifteenth century, who afterwards translated the Bible into French from Lefevre's version, and who seems to have been the first to draw the attention of a youth of his family, also a native of Noyon, to the Gospel, and who became the most ill.u.s.trious chief of the Reformation.[743]

[743] Biogr. Univ., art. _Olivetan_. Hist. du Calvinisme by Maimbourg, p. 53.

[Sidenote: DATE OF THE REFORM IN FRANCE.]

Thus in 1512, at a time when Luther had made no impression on the world, and was going to Rome on some trifling monkish business,--at an epoch when Zwingle had not yet begun to apply himself earnestly to sacred learning, and was crossing the Alps with the confederates to fight for the pope,--Paris and France were listening to the teaching of those vital truths from which the Reformation was ordained to issue; and souls prepared to disseminate them were drinking them in with holy thirst. Hence Theodore Beza, speaking of Lefevre, hails him as the man "who boldly began the revival of the pure religion of Jesus Christ;"[744] and remarks that, "as in ancient times the school of Isocrates sent forth the best orators, so from the lecture-room of the doctor of Etaples issued many of the best men of the age and of the Church."[745]

[744] Et purioris religionis instaurationem fort.i.ter aggressus. Beza Icones.