"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"
-153-
JUNE
24, 1548 --Germany. At Halle, Johann Brenz has opposed the adoption of
the Augsburg Interim by the Imperial states. Charles V with the though
of reestablishing religious unity in Germany has drawn up twenty-six
articles which reveal the Roman Church with its faith and worship, but
tries to compel the Protestants to accept it. Today the Imperial
Chancellor Granvella demands Mr. Brenz to surrender but Mr. Brenz has
been warned by a note that read, “Flee, Brenz, quickly, more quickly,
most quickly!” He escapes this evening on his forty-ninth birthday. Duke
Ulrich will conceal him in the Castle of Hohenwittlingen where he will
be known as Joannes Witlingius and where he will write an exposition on
Psalm ninety-three and Psalm one hundred thirty.
Because the Emperor will hunt everywhere
for Mr. Berry, Duke Ulrich will send him away to Basel by way of
Strasburg. Here he will write an Exposition of Isaiah. Duke Christopher
will call him to Mompelgard where upon hearing of the death of his wife,
he will be forced to flee to Swabia where the Duke will conceal him at
the Castle of Hornberg for eighteen months, and where he will be known
as Huldrich Engster or Encaustius.
Mr. Brenz has freely expressed his concern for
the persecuted Waldensians, Huguenots, and the Bavarian Protestants, who
have been made to suffer under Albert. In the last year of his life, he
will be paralyzed, and at death will be laid in a crypt beneath the
pulpit of the Cathedral of Stuttgart, but the Jesuits who could not
destroy him in life will reek their vengeance by destroying his grave.
24, 1579 --England. The use of Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer
is required in all English churches. Today, it is first used in America.
24, 1697 --England. Matthew Henry is blessed with a fourth child, but
calling to remembrance his father’s death this day last year, he writes,
“This child has come into a world of tears.” In less than a year and a
half, the child will die.
24, 1797 --England. At the age of seventy-three, Mr. Henry Venn dies.
His son, John, relates how in his father’s early years, he changed his
theology—“A change took place in his sentiments respecting some
particular points in Divinity. He had hither to been a zealous Arminian,
hostile to the principles of Calvinism . . .. He now saw in a stronger
light than ever, the truth of those words, ‘The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked’, and he felt more sensibly that if he
was eared at all, it must be by the mere grace of God . . .. Thus he was
prepared to receive the fundamental doctrines of that system which is
called ‘Calvinistic.’”
24, 1868 --Michigan. The convention of the Young Men’s Christian
Associations is held in
Detroit and adopts the following test of active membership which has
come to be known as the “Evangelical Test.” It states:
“Resolved, That as these organizations bear
the name of ‘Christian’ and profess to be engaged directly in the
Saviour’s service, so it is clearly their duty to maintain the control
and management of all their affairs in the hands of those who profess to
love, and publicly avow their faith in Jesus, the Redeemer, as Divine;
and who testify their faith by becoming and remaining members of
churches held to be evangelical; and that such persons, and none others,
should be allowed to vote, or hold office.”
25, 1580 --Germany. The Book of Concord is published on this
fiftieth anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. Its importance lies in
the fact that by the Formula of Concord, and the Book of Concord,
Lutheranism maintains its distinction over Calvinism.
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“If Christianity has not changed a man’s mind and attitude with relation
to his riches, pleasures, indulgences, and recognitions; if it causes
him no serious contemplations, what can he say it has done for him?”
-William Law-