When Farel had been at Aigle a little more than a year, he had the refreshment of a visit to Berne on a very remarkable occasion. The Council and the citizens of Berne held a meeting, in November, 1527, at which it was determined that a public disputation between the papists and the reformers should take place there in the January of the following year.
The Romish bishops and priests, the chief gentlemen and citizens of the Swiss towns, and the preachers and teachers of the gospel, were all alike invited. Each party was to give a reason for the faith which they held. But these reasons were to be given from the Bible only. No other book was to be referred to upon any subject.
What answer would the papists give to such an invitation as this? The four Swiss bishops—of Lausanne, Constance, Basle, and Sion—found various excuses for not coming themselves, and for not sending any priests to speak in their name. The Bernese assured them that if they failed to come, they would be forthwith deprived of all their privileges in the canton of Berne. They still refused to be present. The other bishops and many priests followed their example. The Emperor Charles V. himself ordered that the conference should be delayed, but the Council of Berne replied that, as everyone who had accepted the invitation was already arrived, it would be impossible to defer it.
Let us now place ourselves in the old city of Berne in that month of January, 1528. Whom should we find there? There was of course the great preacher of Berne, Berthold Haller. Zwingli was there. Our old friend Hausschein from Basle, Farel’s old friends from Strasbourg, Bucer and Capito, and many, many more from far and near, who had believed and preached the glad tidings of the grace of God. On the other side were about 350 Swiss and German priests. The conference was to be held in the church of the Cordeliers. Farel could not understand what was said, as the whole was in German. But it was pleasant to be amongst so many old and dear friends and fellow laborers in the gospel of Christ.
The conference began by the rules, or rather the rule, for the disputation being read aloud. “No proof shall be proposed that is not drawn from the holy Scriptures, and no explanation shall be given of those Scriptures that does not come from Scripture itself, explaining obscure texts by such as are clear.”
What a rule! No ancient volumes of “the fathers.” No prayer books, or canon laws—nothing but the Bible. The Bible without notes or comments. The 350 priests brought face to face with that—to see what they could find there, and what they could not find! The names of the Romish bishops were then called over, but there were none to answer to them. The first subject was read aloud. “The holy Christian church, of which Christ is the sole Head, is born of the Word of God, abideth in it, and listeneth not to the voice of a stranger.”
A monk rose up and said, “The word sole is not in Scripture. Christ has left a vicar here below.”
“The vicar that Christ left is the Holy Spirit,” replied Berthold Haller.
A priest then said a few words as to the unity of the Roman church, and the divisions amongst the reformers.
Bucer replied, “Whosoever preaches Jesus as the only Savior, we own as our brother. Besides, a unity in error is not a thing to boast of. Mahomet could boast of that. God permits divisions, in order that those who belong to Him may learn to look not to men, but to the Word of God, and the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Therefore let us all the more turn to the Scriptures.”
They did turn to the Scriptures, they there searched for all that God has said as to the work of His Son. They searched in vain for the mass and for purgatory, for prayer to the saints, for the adoration of images. The priests became more and more angry as the Scripture texts were read aloud. “If they wish to burn the two ministers of Berne,” said one of them, “I will undertake to carry them both to the stake.”
When Sunday morning came, the people assembled in the church, as up to this time they had always done, to hear the mass. The priest stood ready in his gaudy vestments on the altar steps, for these things had not yet been forbidden in Berne. But before the service began, Zwingli appeared in the pulpit. He said aloud the form called the Apostles’ Creed. When he came to the words “He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead,” he stopped. “If these words are true,” he said, after a pause, “the mass is a lie.” And as he continued to speak, the people gazed at him in wonder and consternation.
But greater was their consternation, when suddenly the priest upon the altar steps stripped off his priestly vestments, threw them upon the altar, and said aloud, “Unless the mass has better proofs from Scripture than I know of, I can have no more to do with it.”
The whole city of Berne was thunderstruck at the news of this Sunday morning. Three days later was the feast of St. Vincent, the patron saint of Berne. On that day high mass had always been celebrated in the cathedral. The Council did not even now forbid it. The sacristans went as usual to prepare the incense, and to light the large wax tapers. But they waited alone in the cathedral. Neither priests nor people appeared.
In the evening, at the time of vespers, the organist went to his post. But as before, no one came. The poor man waited with sad forebodings. Would there be an end to that beautiful service, which was also a livelihood to him? The end came sooner than he expected. When, tired of waiting, he left the church, some of the citizens came in, fell upon the organ, and broke it to pieces. No more choral services at Berne!
The conference was now nearly over. Two priests more had owned themselves convinced by the proofs from Scripture, as to the mass being contrary to the Christian faith.
The last discussion was to be in Latin, between Farel and a priest from Paris. The point which the priest desired to prove was, that men were to submit to the church. Being reduced to the Bible for a reason to give, he quoted Matt. 5:2525Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. (Matthew 5:25). “Agree with thine adversary quickly.” He thus explained it: “The adversary is the devil. We are here commanded to submit to the devil, how much more then to the church?” This was too much for the gravity even of the reformers, and the priest was disconcerted at being answered by their laughter. It was certainly impossible to answer such a speech by arguments.
The conference being over, the Council decreed that the mass should be abolished, and the churches stripped of their ornaments and images. Twenty-five altars and a crowd of images were destroyed at once, in the cathedral. Zwingli preached to the people amidst the shattered fragments. His last words were these, “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” What a word for England now!
And so the cathedral of Berne stood emptied of images, but in their place were living worshippers of the living and true God. In the eyes of the priests, and of the poor organist, it had “become a stable.” “Only fit to keep cattle in,” said they. And one, in the height of his anger, rode into it upon an ass. Are there not many now, whose thoughts of a “place of worship,” are much the same as those of these poor Swiss priests? Are there none to whom the things that can be seen, the painted windows, the carved images, the “long drawn aisles,” are dear and even sacred, but who are utterly blind and unconscious as to the presence of the unseen Christ in the midst of the two and three, wherever they are gathered in His name? Where He is not, they do not miss Him, Where the music and the painting and the sculpture are not, they are conscious only of being “in a barn,” or “in a stable.” The Holy Spirit is the One whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him. But where He leads the worship, and where Christ is present, the believing heart craves no more for the sights and sounds, which form all that the world knows of worship—a worship enjoyed by the eyes and ears of men, but which is, alas! too often in the sight of God, “as the husks that the swine do eat.”