"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"
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JULY
24, 1679 --Massachusetts. “The heart of the king is in
the hands of the Lord: He turneth it whithersoever He will.” So today
God impresses the English king to write to the magistrates of
Massachusetts demanding liberty of conscience be allowed to all
Protestants, “so as they might not be discountenanced from sharing in
the government, much less that no such subjects of His, for not agreeing
in the Congregational way, should by law, ‘be subjected to fines or
forfeitures, or other incapacities for the same; which is a severity to
be the more wondered at, whereas liberty of conscience was made a
principal motive for your first transportation into those parts.’”
24, 1725 --England. John Newton is born the son of a shipmaster in the
Mediterranean with whom he will sail until 1742. In 1743, he will be
impressed into the English Naval service. He will be made midshipman,
but will desert and be recaptured and reduced in rank. He will then be
exchanged to a ship in the African station and will become a servant to
a slave trader. Rescued in 1748, he will be converted while on the way
home in a storm at sea.
Being soundly converted, God will call him to preach
the Gospel, and will leave behind him such hymns as “Amazing Grace! How
Sweet the Sound! That Saved a Wretch like Me,”
Thomas Scott will become his successor in his pulpit.
It was of this Mr. Scott, from his famous Commentaries, that
William Carey will write, “If there be anything of the work of God in my
soul, I owe much of it to his preaching when I first set out in the ways
of the Lord.”
24, 1743 --Georgia. The Spanish governor of Florida has resolved on
invading Georgia. Last year he collected forces from Cuba and on July
5th, the fleet of thirty-six Spanish vessels entered the harbor at St.
Simon. They landed, but though marching within a mile of the town, were
driven back by General Oglethorpe. A second attack was foiled, and the
fleet withdrew to the South to attack Fort William a second time. A
garrison of only fifty men defended the fort. Today, General Oglethorpe
orders a general thanksgiving for the termination of the invasion.
25, 383 --Turkey. Coupled with the decree of September 25th,
interdiction is resumed against the religious assembling of heretics.
This includes the Apollinarists, and the Macedonians. Ordination of
heretical clergy is strictly forbidden.
25, 1495 --Italy. Pope Alexander VI summons Savonarola to Rome promising
to “welcome him with love and fraternal affection.” But Savonarola knows
he is dealing with a Borgia who has bribed, stabbed and poisoned his way
into office. He knew also that many who had previously been called to
Rome were never heard from again. Beneath the Castle of St. Angelo are
dungeons where history records men who dared to offer opposition were
walled up in cells. Savonarola therefore excuses himself on account of
illness and dangers along the way.
25, 1508 --Czechoslovakia. Today the national diet passes a law
forbidding all public and private gatherings of the “Pickards” (“Begherds”,
or known also as “Waldensians”), and orders their books destroyed, their
adherents to attend Roman Catholic churches, and their pastors and
teachers to recant or consider themselves the prisoners of the king.
When a fire at Prague destroys the Code of 1541, it will be reenacted
until the estates force its repeal by Rudolph II in 1609.
25, 1593 --France. Henry IV (Navarre), who in 1598 will issue the Edict
of Nantes granting liberty of worship to the Huguenots after sixty years
of persecution, today abjures the Protestant faith. He has been a
Huguenot for political reasons alone. Nothing seems to be wanting to
secure permanent unity and peace in the kingdom but the acceptance by
the king of the religion of the majority. Though he will govern France
justly for eighteen years, religion plays no part in his private life,
which is given to profligacy and debauchery.
Immediately upon Henry’s abjuration, a member of
the Grand Council, himself a Roman Catholic, whispers to a friend, “The
King is lost! He is killable from this hour; before he was not.”
Repeated attempts will be made upon his life, and
finally on May 14, 1610, he will be assassinated.
25, 1817 --England. John Fawcett, pastor of the Baptist Church in
Wainsgate for fifty-two years will die today. He has written the
well-known Gospel song, “Blest Be the Tie that Binds Our Hearts In
Christian Love” for his own congregation.
25, 1839 --Virginia. John Jasper has been assisted by a fellow slave and
has learned to read in the last six months. Today he is converted. He
will follow his father’s example as a preacher and will make himself a
master of the Scriptures.
25, 1863 --Alabama. President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States
of America writes, “Again do I call upon the people of the Confederacy—a
people who believe that the Lord reigneth, and that His overruling
Providence ordereth all things—to unite in prayer and humble submission
under His chastening hand, and to beseech His favor on our suffering
country.
“It is meet that when trials and reverses befall
us we should seek to take home to our hearts and consciences the lessons
which they teach and profit by the self-examination for which they
prepare us. Had not our successes on land and sea made us self-confident
and forgetful of our reliance on Him; had not love of lucre eaten like a
gangrene into the very heart of the land converting too many of us into
worshippers of gain and rendering them unmindful of their duty to their
country, to their fellow-men, and to their God—who then will presume to
complain that we have been chastened or despair of our just cause and
the protection of our Heavenly Father?
“Let us rather receive in humble thankfulness the
lessons which He has taught us in our recent reverses, devoutly
acknowledging that to Him and not to our own feeble arms are due the
honor and glory of victory: that from Him, in His Paternal Providence,
come the anguish and sufferings of defeat, and that, whether in victory
or defeat, our humble supplications are ever at His footstool.
“Now; therefore, I, Jefferson Davis, President of
these Confederate States, do issue this, my proclamation setting apart
Friday, the 21st day of August ensuing as a day of fasting, humiliation,
and prayer, and I do hereby invite the people of these Confederate
States to repair on that day to their respective places of public
worship, and to unite in supplication for the favor and protection of
that God Who has hitherto conducted us safely through all the dangers
that environed us.”
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“There aren’t many great sermons preached today: Preachers are bound by
too many other things to be great Preachers. They give more advice than
a Lawyer, visit more sick than a Doctor; attend more meetings than a
Club-woman; shake more hands than a Politician ...and use the other part
of their time as Errand-Boys. They are Organizers, Promoters,
Executives, and Toast-masters—anything but Prophets speaking for God to
eternity-bound sinners . . ..”
T. T. Martin-