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NOVEMBER
 

9, 1518 --Italy. In a decretal, Pope Leo X affirms his power as the successor of St. Peter and the Vicar of Christ to remit sins alike of the living and of the dead.
     Luther will teach no man can impersonate the authority of God; that the Pope is right in denying the divinity of the emperor but that he blasphemes by claiming himself to be No priest, he will assert, has any power over the soul of man. "Any Christian, be it a woman or a child can remit sins just as well as a priest, and all men are equally priests . . .. A bishop's ordination is no better than an election . . . any child that creeps after baptism is an ordained priest, bishop, and Pope . . .. The priest is nothing but an office-holder . . .. The Pope is our school-fellow; there is but one Master, and His name is Christ in Heaven."
     To discard the Pope, and keep bishops and priests with superhuman authority derived from ordination only substituted one supernatural caste for another. Thus he stripped Popes of their assumed lordship over the consciences of men and which they had stripped from the emperors.
     He will declare Reason to be the "well-spring of law." "If fire is the right cure for heresy, then the faggot-burners are the most learned doctors on earth. Nor need we study any more: he that has brute force on his side may burn adversary at the stake . . .. I will preach the truth, speak the truth, write the truth, but will force the truth on no one; for faith must be accepted willingly and without compulsion."
     By "Reason," he will mean to restrain arbitrary power, for he will declare, "Where a ruler indulges the conceit that he is a prince, not for the sake of his subjects, but for the sake of his beautiful golden hair, he belongs among the heathen . . .. A Christian prince is not a person for himself but a servant for others. The prince must think, 'I belong to the land and the people, and will therefore serve them with my office.'"
     "If the emperor or the princes should command me and say, 'Thus and thus you ought to believe;' then I speak: 'Dear, emperor, dear princes, your demand is too high.'
     "If they say, 'Yes, you must be obedient to us, for we are the higher powers.' Then I answer: 'Yes, you are lords over this temporal life, but not over the eternal life.'
     "They speak further: 'Yes, peace and unity must be preserved; therefore you must believe as the emperor and princes believe.' What do I hear? The Turk might as well say: 'Listen Roman emperor, listen princes; you ought to believe as the Turks believe for the sake of peace and unity;' for what holds good for the one holds good for the other, for the Turkish emperor, and for every nobleman in the village. No, dear emperor, dear prince, dear lord, dear lady, it does not belong to you to make such a demand."
     So, he will further state, "All bishops that take the right of judgment of doctrine from the sheep are certainly to be held as murderers and thieves, wolves and apostate Christians. Christ gives the right of judgment to the scholars and sheep. St. Paul will have no doctrine or proposition held, till it has been proved and recognized as good by the congregation that hears it. Every Christian has God's Word, and is taught of God and anointed as a priest."
     It will follow, therefore, that the "minister of the Word" should be elected by the congregation itself, and in 1523, Luther will publish with Scripture proofs, a Christian congregation has the right to call, and depose teachers. Therefore, in May, 1525, he will write to the peasants of Swabia: "'The whole congregation should have power to choose and to depose a pastor;' this article is right . . .. You princes and lords cannot with any color refuse them the right to elect a pastor."
     When the Incarnate Deity was revealed, "A star," said Luther, "moved in the sky, and guided the Pilgrim wisemen to the manger where the Saviour lay." He therefore will advise oppressed people take with them the teacher of their choice and the open Bible to follow "the star" of freedom to lands where religious liberty can find a home. This will become the common principle on which Frenchmen will first colonize Nova Scotia and Florida as well as the English the colonies.

9, 1572 --Scotland. John Knox, the great reformer of Scotland will preach his last sermon today inducting his successor to his flock at St. Giles.
     When middle age in life, he was captured by the French and sent to the galleys where he spent nineteen months before the English government intervened. His miseries and hardships as a galley slave permanently injured his health. Once, "lying between Dundee and St. Andrews, the second time that the galleys returned to Scotland, the said John (Knox) being so extremely sick that few hoped his life, Maister (afterwards Sir) James (Balfour, one of his fellow prisoners) willed him to look to the land and asked if he knew it. Who answered, 'Yes, I know it well; for I see the steeple of that place where God first in public opened my mouth to His glory; and I am fully persuaded how weak soever I now appear, that I shall not depart this life till that my tongue shall glorify His Godly name in the same place!"

9, 1620 --Massachusetts. The Pilgrims anchor in the bay at Cape Cod and though hastening to keep a Sabbath of prayer and praise on Clark's Island, the Mayflower Compact is drawn up and signed.

9, 1875 --Scotland. Brownlow North dies at Tullichewan Castle. As a young man he was careless of his soul, being a pleasure-monger. Then in November 1854 visiting Dallas Moors, the Spirit of God arrested him. For the next several months he read only the Bible and preached the Gospel. He has served as a revivalist among the socially elite and God has been pleased to salt his labors with fruitfulness.
 

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