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MARCH
 

6, 1475 --Italy. Michelangelo Buonarroti is born to a government agent in Caprese. Lorenzo de Medici will invite him as a young man to Florence to lodge in his house. At the age of twenty-three years, he will carve his “Pieta”—the dead Christ on the knees of the mournful Mary. He will paint nine thousand square feet of frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. These will include nine scenes: three of God creating the world, three of Adam and Eve, and three of Noah and the Flood. These will be surrounded by twelve Old Testament prophets. This work will take him four years to complete.

6, 1521 --Germany. Emperor Charles V signs his summons to Luther—

        “Charles, by the grace of God, elected Roman Emperor, always Augustus, etc.
        “Honorable, Dear and Pious! We, and the States of the Holy Empire, having resolved to make an inquest touching the doctrine and the books which you have published for some time past, have given you to come here and return to a place of safety, our safe conduct, and that of the empire here subjoined. Our sincere desire is that you immediately prepare for this journey, in order that in the space of twenty-one days mentioned in our safe-conduct, you be here certainly, and without fail. Have no apprehension of either injustice or violence. We will firmly enforce our safe-conduct under written, and we expect that you will answer to our call. In so doing, you will follow our serious advice.

       “Given at our imperial city of Worms, the sixth day of March in the year of our Lord, 1521, and in the second of our reign.” (Signed) Charles

        “By order of my Lord the Emperor with his own hand, Albert, Cardinal of Mentz, Arch Chancellor.” (Signed) Nicolas Zwyl

          His friends will counsel Luther not to go to Worms, but the man of God responds, “Were they to make a fire that would extend from Worms to Wittemberg, and reach even to the sky, I would walk across it in the name of the Lord: I would appear before them; I would walk into the jaws of this Behemoth and break his teeth and confess the Lord Jesus Christ.”

 
 

6, 1523 --Germany. Duke Ludwig publishes the “Nuremberg Edict”. In 1526, he will put a new edge on the edict prohibiting the preaching of the Gospel except as approved by the established church.

6, 1629 --Czechoslovakia. Ferdinand II issued the “Edict of Restitution”. It abrogates the Declaration of Ferdinand I at the Religious Peace of 1555 that secured religious peace to Protestant subjects. Today the king proclaims the religious peace is to apply only to Roman Catholic subjects and to the adherents of the Augsburg Confession. Every other sect is prohibited with in the empire.

6, 1631 --France. The Reformed religion is prohibited in Rioux (Saintonge). In 1633, half the Protestant colleges will be transferred to the Roman Catholics, while by 1635, the city of Metz will forbid the erecting of one, and Parliament will in 1656 forbid Reformed parents to compel the attendance of their children at their own worship.

6, 1745 --Scotland. The Seceders from the Church of Scotland, having established the “Associate Presbytery” meets today for the first time as the “Associate Synod.” Among these are the brothers, Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine.

6, 1773 --Massachusetts. Governor Hutchinson has drawn the Massachusetts Assembly into debate, which has continued since January. Today it closes with the Governor declaring “It is essential to the being of government that power should always exist which no other power within such government can have right to withstand or control; therefore, when the word “power” relates to the supreme authority of government it must be understood “absolute” and “unlimited.”
          In June, a letter will be published at Boston written by the Governor to a member of Parliament on January 20, 1769, and which reads, “I never think of the measures necessary for the peace and good order of the colonies without pain. There must be an ‘abridgement’ of what are called ‘English liberties. ‘”

6, 1774 --Wales. John Elias is born in Carnarvonshire. As Howell Harris has been used of God to bring revival to the South of Wales, God will employ Mr. Elias to bring revival to the North of Wales. The church that will arise in Wales in this 18th century awakening will be called the “Calvinistic Methodist church,” but Mr. Elias says it “was not called ‘Calvinistic Methodist’ at first as there was not a body of the Arminian Methodists in the country. But when the Wesleyans came amongst us, it was necessary to add the word ‘Calvinistic’ to show the difference.”

6, 1790 --Connecticut. At Bethlehem, Joseph Bellamy dies. He was a student, a disciple and a friend of Jonathan Edwards. Some have equaled his preaching to that of George Whitefield. During the Great Awakening, he served as an itinerant evangelist.
           In his Wisdom of God In The Permission of Sin, he argues that though it is a terrible evil, God permits it as a necessary means of the best good, and that the universe is “more holy and happy than if sin and misery had never entered;” that God could have prevented it without violating free-will.
 

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