(Continued from p. 191, Vol. 6.)
NINE years passed by after Master Faber had published his book upon the Epistles of Paul. During that time he preached and taught diligently the things of the Lord in the lecture halls of the Paris University. It was in vain that he was contradicted, opposed, hated, and despised by a great number of the priests and doctors. It seemed as though all this signified nothing to him, which was indeed the case. The Lord had set before him an open door, and no man could shut it. Various events were so ordered by God that Master Faber was never silenced, and was even encouraged to hope that the truth would at last be owned by many who heard it. In the first place, the king, Louis XII., called upon the university to decide whether the pope ought to have absolute power in the affairs of the Church. A monk had written a book to prove this, and as the kings of France had for centuries maintained the right of the Church in France to appoint bishops there, Louis XII. was not prepared to own the pope’s authority in every point. The University of Paris decided the question against the pope. It was not always easy to see whether men opposed the pope for their own ends, or because they saw that the Bible condemned him. Master Faber, perhaps, thought sometimes that the light was beginning to dawn, when it was only natural pride and self-will that were at work. But it was really the case that several amongst the students began to hear the Word gladly.
At last one came to listen from whom Master Faber and William hoped great things. This was Count William Briconnet, Bishop of Meaux. He had known Master Faber in former days, and respected him for his learning. Since then he had been twice sent to Rome, as ambassador from the king of France, to the pope. There was now a new king—Francis I., Louis XII. had died Jan. 1, 1515. There was also a new pope; Julius II. had died two years before Louis XII. The new pope could not be called a “ferocious monster.” He was a pleasant, gentlemanly man, fond of art and science, and still more fond of luxury and pleasure. He lived to indulge himself in every possible manner, right or wrong— “in wickedness of all sorts,” says a Roman Catholic historian who knew him. The words of this historian are as follows: “We remember having had, and having adored, a pontiff, who arrived at the height of infidelity. He gave full proof of this by the practice of wickedness of all sorts, for he confessed [before some of his servants that neither before he was pope, nor after, did he believe in the existence of God. Cardinal Bembo once tried to prove to him from Scripture that the soul of man is immortal. He said in a rage, ‘What you pretend to convince me by a book of fables!’ He stirred up war all over Europe, in order to further the interests of his family.” It is therefore not surprising that the two visits paid to this pope—Leo X.—by the Bishop of Meaux did not confirm him in, the belief that the pope was to be honored as God. He came back sickened by the revels and feasts of the pope’s palace, and betook himself to his old friend, Master Faber. He was thankful, too, to make the acquaintance of William Farel, who was now himself lecturing, as Master of Arts, in one of the chief colleges of Paris. Two other young men, Arnold and Gerard Roussel, appeared also to have received the gospel. With this little company the bishop studied the Word of God, and listened humbly and meekly to the teaching he now heard for the first time. He could not express his joy and thankfulness that the light of the gospel had thus reached him.
Master Faber entreated the bishop to study the Bible for himself, and thus to learn what Christianity was before man had added to it or taken from it. The bishop read much and carefully. He said he could never have enough of such heavenly food. He only wondered that everybody did not see, as he did, that the new teaching was the truth of God. He spoke of the gospel and of the scriptures to all his friends. Many of these were also friends of the king, and were much at the court. The king’s physician, and even his confessor, appeared to listen gladly, and to desire to learn more. All this encouraged Faber and Farel, and was perhaps one reason why Farel did not at once see his way to stand aloof altogether from the Church of Rome. He and Master Faber still went to the cathedral and to the churches. It was true, as William said, that popery fell little by little from his heart. But though it fell slowly, it fell surely and steadily. The forms and ceremonies, the chanting and the idolatry, seemed to him, as time went on, more intolerable and wearisome, more profane and sinful. When the crowds were kneeling before an image or an altar, Farel stood amongst them in sorrow and displeasure. “O God!” he would say, “Thou alone art wise! Thou alone art good! Nothing must be taken away from Thy holy law, and nothing added. For Thou alone art the Lord, and Thou alone must command!” The beautiful services which had been the delight of his heart were now only hateful and grievous. The priests and doctors whom he had revered, now only appeared to him as the enemies of the gospel. He had seen the glory of Christ, and in the luster of that light all else was dark and dim. Master Faber began to be alarmed lest William should go too far. If they had at that time begun to talk over the necessity of leaving the Church of Rome, it was a point upon which they could not see alike. There are many of God’s servants who have at last to say, “We would have healed Babylon, but she could not be healed!” Of this number was Master Faber. He clung to the hope that the Church he still loved and revered might be “made new” —that priests and people would at last turn from their idols to the living and true God. They had not heard the gospel before, but now that God had put the blessed message into his mouth, who could say what the power of that word might be? Let them only go on, preaching boldly and faithfully, at the risk of opposition, and suffering, and death, and the Church of Rome might yet be cleansed and restored, and all might be as in the days when Paul preached the gospel, and man had not yet added to it. Soon an event happened which no doubt confirmed Master Faber in his hopes of better days.
The king’s sister, Margaret, duchess of Alencon, was already celebrated for her great talents, her kindness of heart, and her extraordinary influence over the king her brother. Margaret was a friend of Briconnet. She talked freely to him and to others about the court, who were beginning to hold the “new opinions.” Some of her ladies gave her tracts which Briconnet had given to them. She read them eagerly, for her heart was sick and weary amidst the folly and gaiety of her brother’s dissolute court. She now desired to see Master Faber and William Farel, and to read the Word of God with them and with the bishop. And thus it would seem that the Princess Margaret was really converted to God. She did not cease to be a Papist, nor did she follow the Lord fully in any way, for she knew Him but very dimly. Still we cannot but think of her as one who, after a sorrowful and doubtful course, will yet be found amongst the number of those who now sleep in Christ. In any case it is certain that the used her influence with her brother, the king, on the side of the truth. She encouraged those who preached it, and, as far as she had power, she protected them from persecution and opposition.
The king himself, too, was by no means inclined to silence Faber and Farel. This also nay have raised vain hopes in the mind of Master Faber. He may have thought that the, king was almost persuaded to be a Christian. But in the case of Francis, it was simply dislike to the tyranny of the priests, which made him rejoice that anyone should dare to contradict them. “I like to show,” he said, “that a king of France is not to be kept in leading strings.” He despised he priests, too, for their ignorance, and their dislike to learning. They even spoke against printing as a wicked invention of the Devil, and accused the printers of being wizards. Francis who was an intelligent man, and who took an interest in all these new discoveries, seems at first to have looked upon the gospel as one of the modern inventions, which was to improve the world in general. It was only later, when he found that it condemned his vices and his crimes, that he thought otherwise. He discovered in time that the evil deeds which the priests allowed, and for which he could buy pardons from the pope, wen condemned unsparingly by the gospel, and it then needed all the entreaties of his beloved sister Margaret, to prevent him from siding with the priests he hated, in order to put it down. But a first it was not so, and Master Faber hoped on.
Then, again, there came cheering news to Paris from across the Rhine. A German monk had dared to teach and preach openly that the pardon of sins was not to be bought with money but was given by God to sinners, without money and without price. That to believe in the Lon Jesus Christ was the way to be saved. He had even dared to post up a paper upon the doors to the church at Wittemberg, warning people not to buy the pardon of their sins from the pardon seller. He had been stirred up to do this, because the pope, Leo X., had opened a market for the sale of pardons. He had sent pardon-sellers through the towns and villages of Europe, to offer for money such pardons as no pope had eves sold before. People might buy pardons, not only for past sins, but for sins they meant to commit. Each sin had its price, and might be committed without fear or shame, if paid for beforehand. The souls of the dead might be redeemed from purgatory on the spot, for a small sum. All this money was to go towards the restoration of the church of St. Peter’s at Rome. “How profitable,” said the pope, as the large sums were paid into his coffers which the pardon-sellers brought back, “How profitable has this fable of Jesus been to us!” For it was not only the church of St. Peter, but the feasts and amusements of the pope, for which large sums of money were needed. To the rich was the pope’s gospel preached, and those who turned a deaf ear to the gospel of God from heaven listened to the gospel from Rome.
The German monk spoke boldly against this sale of the souls of men. He had not the light and knowledge which Master Faber and William Farel had; but he was an honest and a brave man, and, as far as God had enlightened his mind, he spoke out, and wrote papers and books which were spread far and wide. In time they reached Paris, and the little band of Christians read them eagerly, and thanked God for them. This German monk was Martin Luther. Thus there were streaks of light appearing on every side, and had we lived then, we, too, might have thought that the truth would at last be owned by the miserable fallen church that had so long rejected it. F. B.