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NOVEMBER
 

2 --All Souls' Day. The early church set this day aside to remember all those who have "died in the Lord." Luther demanded it be given up. Protestants, including the Church of England, do not observe it.

2, 1164 --England. Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was summoned to a council at Northampton on October 8th by Henry II. He was at that time to answer charges of contempt of royal authority. Having denied the right of the assembly to judge him, he has appealed to the Pope and today goes into voluntary exile, embarking on a fishing boat bound for France.

2, 1560 – France. A proclamation having been published and posted in the village of Angrogna that all would be destroyed by fire and sword who would not forthwith return to the Church of Rome, today, the Count de la Trinite will advance at the head of his army to extirpate the Waldensian “heretics.”
    The Vaudois are armed with only slings and crossbows and number only two hundred men. Nevertheless, they rush upon the soldiers who for the most part are surprised and confused, and throwing away their weapons they flee down into the valley. Irritated by the disgraceful retreat of twelve hundred soldiers before two hundred peasants, the Count advances again, only to be repulsed again when this little band charges his troops shouting “Vivo Jesu Christo!” The invaders are again driven down the valley in confusion.

2, 1600 –England. At Bishopsbourne, Richard Hooker dies. He was a student of John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury. He has been the chief defender of Elizabethan settlement of doctrinal and liturgical questions against Puritans. His magnum opus, the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity will not appear until 1661, but in it he has defended episcopacy against the Calvinistic Presbyterianism of the Puritans. John Keble said that his widow burned the manuscript, but the rough draft was preserved. It is the first great ecclesiastical work in the English language.

2, 1745 – Pennsylvania. George Whitefield lands at York. This is his second visit to New England and causes alarm to the ministers. Five days from now Mr. Charles Chauncey, President of Harvard College, will preach, “I beseech my fathers and brethren in the ministry to mark this man who has caused divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid him. Turn your view, my brethren, into all corners of the land. Behold the confusion in towns and the contentions in churches! ... Perhaps it will be said, these mischievous things are only accidental effects, and not to be charged upon him. So far from it, that they are unavoidable consequence of that spirit in which he appeared.”
     The heads of Harvard College will soon publish a testimony against Mr. Whitefield which will be followed by yet another by the ministerial association of Weymouth on January 15th, and still a third, by an association at Marlborough on the 22nd. Many others will follow: some by groups and many others by individuals taking great pains to prove he is a dishonest man, particularly as he relates of those things he has done while a minister of the Church of England when as yet he was unconverted.
     On May 28, 1741, during his first visit to America, the President of Harvard College addressed the annual convention of ministers at Boston. Referring to Mr. Whitefield and Mr. Tennent, he said, “Those two pious and valuable men of God, who have been lately laboring more abundantly among us, have been greatly instrumental in the hand of God to revive this blessed work; and many, no doubt, have been savingly converted from the error of their ways, and many more have been in some measure roused from their lethargy.” When reminded of this, he declares, “Alas, how was I deluded with show and appearance!”

2, 1789 – France. The National Assembly declares all ecclesiastical property to be at the disposal of the state and guarantees the salaries of the clergy.

2, 1917 – England. In the Balfour declaration, England declares that Great Britain views “with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”


 

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