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AUGUST

    
17, 1727 --Germany. The fire of God descends and the Moravian Revival begins. It will last ten days. It has begun in a class of nine girls between the ages of ten years and thirteen years, and has been led by Count Zinzendorf. Before it will end, it will spread to other girls, then to the boys, and lastly to the adults. These are the followers of John Huss.

17, 1761 --England. At Paulerspury, Northamptonshire, William Carey is born. He will become known as the "Father of Modern Missions" and will translate and print the Bible into twenty-six languages of India making it possible for three hundred million people to read it.

17, 1837 --New York. The Old School of the Presbyterian Church being in control of that denomination "excinds" the “New School" synods of Utica, Geneva, and Genesee, New York; and Western Reserve in Ohio declaring them to be “neither in form nor in fact a part of the Presbyterian Church." Today two hundred ministers and many laymen representing the Presbyteries in these synods meet in Auburn, New York. Sixteen articles will be drafted to confound the sixteen charges of heresy held by the "New School" party.
     The first heresy held by the New School was "that God would have been glad to prevent the existence of sin in our world, but was not able without destroying the moral agency of man; or that, for aught that appears in the Bible, sin is incidental to any wise, moral system." The Auburn Declaration affirms "God permitted the introduction of sin, not because He was unable to prevent it consistently with the moral freedom of His creatures, but for wise and benevolent reasons which He has not revealed."
    The convention adheres to the Westminster standard, and listing election first in the order of salvation it affirms the primary purpose of God was to save His elect out of the human race which was to be afterward created. In pursuance of this purpose man was formed; the Fall was decreed and an Atonement was provided sufficient for the elect. The following propositions maintain original sin, total depravity, vicarious atonement, Christ's inter-cession for the elect prior to their conversion, irresistible grace of God, instantaneous regeneration, and others.
    Article thirteen declares, “All who are saved are indebted from first to last to the grace and spirit of God, and the reason why God does not save all is not that He wants the power to do it, but that in His wisdom He does not see fit to exert that power further than He actually does."
     The Auburn Declaration will be endorsed by the General Assembly, (the "Old School"), in 1868.

18, 1516 --France. Frances I delivers France to the ecclesiastical dominion of Pope Leo X in the famous Concordat. Parliament has offered stout resistance to the Concordat, and thus the king has caused its deputies to wait for several weeks at Amboise. Then one day, rising from his table, he orders them to appear before him. "There is a king in France," he declares, "and I don't understand that a senate exists in it as at Venice." Thus saying, he orders them to depart before sunset. Civil liberty is unknown to such princes. But Frances has realized the injustice of the Concordat, for turning to Anthony Duprat, the appointed chancellor of the kingdom, he whispers, "There is enough in it to damn us both."

18, 1655 –France. A Treaty of Peace is signed restoring to the Waldensians certain of their rights, but forbidding them instruction in their religion.

 

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