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JULY

    
 28, 1729 --Massachusetts. Jonathan Edwards marries Miss Sarah Pierrepoint. She is nineteen years of age. Their children will be distinguished for four generations as Godly Christians. A daughter will marry David Brainerd, the “Apostle to the American Indians. Mr. Brainerd will die in their home.

28, 1750 --Germany. Johann Sebastian Bach dies. He has often written on his manuscripts “To God alone be the glory,” or “With the help of Jesus.” He has composed such famous compositions as the “Christmas Oratorio,” “St. Matthew’s Passion,” “St. John’s Passion” and “Sleepers, Wake!” His masses are written not as a Roman Catholic sacrifice, but as a memorial in the same spirit of Luther.
      His eyes are nearly totally blind. He has therefore dictated his last composition, “Before Thy Throne I Now Appear,” while he lay upon his deathbed. His confidence in his God is evidenced in his “Come, Sweet Death; Come Take Me Home.”
      Though his oratorio, “St. Matthew’s Passion” was received by an unfriendly audience, in 1829, twenty year old Felix Mendelssohn will present it on March 21st, Bach’s birthday, and will meet with instant success. Mr. Mendelssohn will reply to a friend in the theatre who will assist him in its production, “To think that it should be an actor and a Jew that has given back to the people the greatest Christian work.”

29, 1742 --Massachusetts. David Brainerd is licensed to preach the Word of God.

29, 1833 --England. Mr. William Wilberforce has lead England in the abolition of the slave trade. Today he dies. Many people have felt as the king that slavery was both a natural and a Scriptural institution. Since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, England enjoyed a monopoly of the slave trade. The debate lasted for twenty years. The question of slavery was brought into focus by the French Revolution with the slave uprising in St. Domingo in 1791. The “African Institution” was then founded to secure laws for the suppression of the slave trade in other countries.

29, 1845 --Switzerland. In February - November, the government being in a state of revolution forbids private meetings and requires total submission. A petition ends by saying, “We are ready to sacrifice everything to our state church but our conscience.” They are ordered today to read from the pulpit a proclamation commending the action of the government. Forty-one pastors refuse and are suspended. One hundred and ninety more will send in their resignations as a result. In June 1847, the first synod of the Free Church will be conducted.

30, 370 --Italy. Emperor Valentinian I issues an edict denouncing the faults of the clergy and monks and guarantees to punish infractions in their moral conduct. It contains directions to bishops and nuns of which Jerome remarks, “I do not complain of the law, but I grieve that we merit it.”

30, 904 --Greece. Saracens capture the city of Thessalonica.

30, 1233—Germany. While on his way to Marburg, Conrad of Marburg is assassinated by Hessian knights. Conrad was Germany’s Inquisitor-General. Typical among the Inquisitors, penitents have had to blindly surrender themselves. The burning of heretics will continue by Inquisitors into the fourteenth century when Charles IV will lead multitudes of Bohemians, Silesians, and Germans to their death.

30, 1540 --England. Dr. Barnes, Garret, and Jerome are burned at the stake at Smithfield.
They preached powerfully “the doctrines of salvation by grace, the very doctrines for which (they) were persecuted,” so writes Merle D’Aubigne

30, 1630 --Massachusetts. It is Friday, and today a fast is held at Charlestown, and after prayers, and preaching, John Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, Isaac Johnson, and John Wilson covenant together into one “congregation,” as part of the visible church. On next Lord’s Day they will receive others. Only members will be allowed to partake of the Lord’s Supper, or to present their children for baptism.
     This church will become the seminal center of the ecclesiastical system of Massachusetts, and on August 23rd, the first court of assistants will be held at Charlestown. How the ministers should be provided for will be their chief care in this meeting. It will be ordered that houses should be built for them and support provided at the common charge.
     On August 27th, the men of the congregation will observe a fast and selecting John Wilson as their pastor, they set him apart by the imposition of hands. The ruling elder and deacon will be likewise chosen and installed. This body, crossing over the Charles River, will become known as the First Church of Boston.
 

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