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AUGUST

30, 1789 --Virginia. This Sunday, Francis Asbury writes, "As a high day --one thousand or fifteen hundred people attended; sinners began to mock, and many cried aloud; and so it went. I was wonderfully led out on Psalm 145:8-12, and spoke first and last, nearly three hours, 0 how the wicked contradicted and opposed!"

30, 1792 --France. The Revolutionary Assembly decrees divorce is possible by simple declaration. On September 20th, it will be amended to common agreement.

30, 1858 --New Hebrides. John G. Paton arrives with his wife at Aneityum, New Hebrides as a pioneer missionary.

31, 1679 --Massachusetts. Samuel Willard preaches,

      I. "They (children) are all born in ignorance (Romans 3:17) without the knowledge and fear of God. They must have it by doctrine and instruction.

     II. "This ignorance lays them open to Satan to lead them wither he will.

     III. "(It) holds them under the power (and) efficacy of sin. A blind mind and a dead conscience are companions. Hence they sin without shame. Ignorance stops the activity of all the faculties.

     IV. "As long as they remain in this natural Ignorance there is no hope of being freed from everlasting misery. If you have any compassion for them, take pains that they may know God.

     V. "Hardness of heart (and) Alienation from God springs from Ignorance; and –

     VI. "They hence are inclined to fulfil their own evil will."

31, 1688 --England. John Bunyan will die after ten days of illness and will be met by an "innumerable hand" of saints and angels as he crosses the river of death. He has contracted a cold while riding horseback in the rain attempting to bring harmony between a father and his son. His last words are, "Take me, for I come to Thee."
     He has said, "The Church of Christ hath not warrant to keep out of the communion the Christian that is discovered to be a visible saint of the Word, the Christian that walketh according to his own light with God."
     He has founded the First Baptist Church of Bedford and will admit pedobaptists into fellowship.

31, 1865 --Confederate States of America. The three bishops of the "Southern” Methodist Church take up the plea for continued existence and thus the Methodists in the South raise their standard against Reconstruction.

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"Controversy and religious strife no doubt are odious things; but there are times when they are a positive necessity. Unity and peace are very delightful; but they are bought too dear if they are bought at the expense of truth. There is a vast amount of maundering, childish, weak talk nowadays in some quarters about unity and peace, which I cannot reconcile with the language of Paul. It is a pity, no doubt, that there should be so much controversy; but it is also a pity that human nature should be so had as it is, and that the Devil should be loose in the world. It was a pity that Arius taught error about Christ's person, but it would have been a greater pity if Athanasius had not opposed him. It was a pity Tetzel went about preaching up the Pope's indulgences; it would have been a far greater pity if Luther had not withstood him. Controversy, in fact, is one of the conditions under which truth in every age has to be defended, and maintained, and it is nonsense to ignore it.”    

-J. C. Ryle-


 

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