Furbity seeing no other means of escape, determined to fight for Rome. On Thursday, 29th January, a rumor spread through the city that the monk would hold a discussion with the reformers. The Two Hundred, and a certain number of other citizens, met in the Hotel de Ville to be present at this important struggle.
One of the tourneys of the Reformation at Geneva was about to begin; the two combatants were in the lists. On one side the Dominican, the champion of Rome, came forward with scholastic learning that was not to be despised, a front of adamant, lungs strong enough to reduce all his rivals to silence, and a tongue furnished with an inexhaustible flow of words.[[448]] At once violent and skilful, he made use of every weapon, and possessed a particular art of glozing over his errors and rendering them less apparent.[[449]] On the other side was Farel, less experienced than his rival in the tricks of dialectics, but full of love for the truth, firm as a warrior advancing to defend it, and ready to confound the monk’s scholastic arguments by the invincible demonstrations of the Scriptures of God. Possessing a manly eloquence and sonorous voice, his clear, energetic, and at times ironical language, did prompt justice upon the sophisms of his adversaries[[450]].
The reformer rose first and said: ‘This is a serious business; let us therefore speak with all mildness. Let not one strive to get the better of the other. We can have no nobler triumph than to see the truth prevail. So that it be acknowledged by all, I willingly consent to forfeit my life.’ Touched by his words, the assembly exclaimed: ‘Yes, yes! that is what we desire.’
Furbity began by asserting the authority of the pope. He maintained that the heads of the Church may ordain things that are not in Scripture, and to prove it, he quoted Deuteronomy: ‘If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, thou shalt come unto the priests, and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee.’[[451]]
Farel, on the contrary, maintained the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and declared that all doctrine must be founded on them alone. He called to mind that God, in this very book of Moses, had said: ‘Ye shall not add unto the Word which I command you, neither shall you diminish aught from it.’[[452]] ‘What is said of the Levitical priest in the Old Testament (he added) ought to be applied, not to the Romish priests, but to Jesus Christ, who is the everlasting high-priest. To him, therefore, we must go, him we must obey, and not the priest.’[[453]] ‘Christ,’ exclaimed Furbity, ‘gave to St. Peter the key of the kingdom of heaven, and St. Peter transmitted it to the priests, his successors.’ ‘The key of the heavenly kingdom,’ answered Farel, ‘is the Word of God. If any one believes in the promises of grace with all his heart, heaven opens for him. If any one rejects them, heaven is closed against him.’
As it was growing late, the discussion was adjourned to the next day, and Furbity said haughtily that he was ready. A voice from the midst of the crowd called out: ‘Endeavor to hold more to the Word of God and less to the teaching of the Sorbonne.’ ‘I shall behave like a man,’ he answered. ‘If the strength of a man consists in his want of sense, then you are a true man,’ rudely returned the speaker.
The next day the discussion entered upon a new phase.
Interpretation By The Councils.
Farel maintained throughout the right and duty of the Christian people to read the Scriptures, to understand them, and to submit to them alone. Furbity, on the contrary, asserted that the Scriptures should be read by the clergy only, and understood conformably with the interpretation of the councils. He proved his point by reasons which might have some force in the eyes of his friends, but they had none for Farel, who maintained the necessity of the immediate contact of each Christian soul with the Scriptures of God. It was not from councils (he contended) nor from popes, but from the Word of God itself that every Christian must receive by faith the truth which saves. The first assembly at Jerusalem (ordinarily termed the first council), was it not, according to the account in the Acts, composed of apostles, elders, and of the whole church, and did it not begin its letter with: ‘The apostles and elders and brethren’? Defending, therefore, the rights of the lay members of the flock, he declaimed energetically against the institution of all those dignitaries who, in the Romish Church, are lords over God’s heritage: ‘You invent all sorts of things,’ he said to the Dominican,[[454]] ‘you introduce diversities of orders, a countless number of eminences, bishops, prelates, archbishops, primates, cardinals, popes, and other superiorities of which Scripture makes no mention. You do everything to your own fancy, without any regard to God or the right. The apostles took counsel with the whole assembly of the believers, but you ... you do everything, you are everything! ... you cut and shape as you please. The Christian people are no more called by you into council than dogs and brutes. Your ordinances must be adored, and those of God be trodden under foot. Your papal monarchy surpasses all others in pride, pomp, and feasting. You want those who are to teach the people to be princes with lordships, estates, law-courts, and governments. You want to have a rich triumphant Jesus, who shall put to death all who contradict him.... Ah! sirs, the Saviour was not such here below: he was poor, humble, put to death, and his disciples were banished, imprisoned, stoned, and killed.... What similarity is there between the Apostolic Church and yours?... The supreme argument in yours is the executioner.... The apostles did not, like you, fulminate fierce excommunications; they did not, like you, imprison and condemn.... No! Jesus is not in the midst of you. He is in the midst of those who are expelled, beaten, burnt for the Gospel, as the martyrs were in the time of the primitive Church.’
Farel’s Thunders.