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NOVEMBER
 

15, 1670 --Holland. At Amsterdam, John Comenius dies. When he lost his wife and child in the plague he traveled among his brethren and lived in mountain castles strengthening them in the faith when they were banished from Moravia. At one time he served as a bishop in Moravia.

15, 1794 --New Jersey. Rev. John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister, dies at Princeton. He has firmly established the college here, and has led John Hancock to saving faith in Jesus Christ. With the burning words of Christ, "I Am the Door," Mr. Hancock has responded to the sermon.
     At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Rev. Witherspoon broke the silence while men pondered whether or not to sign their names to the document. Quietly he began repeating the Word of God, "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed!" Then, with increasing volume, he cried out, "Where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty!" He is the only minister to sign the document. Four years before, he became totally blind.

16, 1688 --Massachusetts. Mrs. Glover is executed in Boston for bewitching the four children belonging to a Boston mason named Goodwin. The four children aged five, seven, eleven and thirteen years barked like dogs, and. purred or mewed like cats. They fell into strange contortions, one of them crying out she was being strangled, a chain bound her leg or she was in an oven. The physical signs of choking, lameness and perspiration bore evidence to her statements. The children have accused Mrs. Glover who is known for a violent temper.

16, 1733 --Scotland. Today, the Associate Synod, lead by Ebenezer Erskine, announces its secession from the Church of Scotland. The four original members do not ascribe their action to any one of the Church's actions but to "a course of defection from our Reformed and Covenanting principles."
     In a sermon entitled, "Unbelief Arraigned and Condemned at the Bar of God", Mr. Erskine declared, " ...There are (two) things, any one of which will amount to this capital crime (of unbelief): 1.) A denial of the truth of the Gospel; looking upon the Word of God contained in the Scriptures as a fiction, or a cunningly devised fable. I am very suspicious there are unbelievers of this stamp among those who are called by the name of Christians --men pretending to be great masters of reason who --because their weak and depraved minds cannot grasp the unsearchable mysteries of our holy religion --do, therefore, turn infidels, and reject the whole as an incredible paradox. This very thing upon which they stumble proves it to be of a Divine original. The unsearchable wisdom that appears in every one of the works of God proves them indeed to be His works, and not the works of any created being. And shall it be imagined that there is less wisdom in His words than in His works when they are the more immediate product and picture of His infinite understanding, which can never be searched out? Here, if anywhere, we may expect the "deep things of God; the wisdom of God in a mystery, which none of the princes of this world knew."
     2.) "A doubting or wavering uncertainty of mind about the truths of the Gospel will amount to this crime of unbelief pointed at in my text. There are some who, though they do not go to the length of denying flatly that the Bible is the Word of God, or that the Gospel is of a Divine original, yet they waver, and are in suspense about it; like the worshippers of Baal, they "halt between two opinions," they neither believe, nor disbelieve it; but are like the scales of an even balance, ready to turn either to this or the other side. Such are unbelievers in Christ's reckoning; for 'he that is not with me,' says He, ‘is against Me’ . . .."

16, 1775 --Connecticut. Dr. Eleazar Wheelock has turned his attention to the Indians. The result will be the formation of Dartmouth College. Living so remotely from the government, information such as proclamations for fasts and thanksgivings frequently reach him days late.
     Today has been set aside by the Connecticut government as the annual day for thanksgiving. In two weeks, however, he will receive a proclamation from the British authority that another day has been appointed. As his conscience will not allow him to keep two thanksgivings the same season simply to obey the magistrates, he will be threatened with persecution. Accordingly, he will preach a sermon on John 18:36 entitled “Liberty of Conscience" or "No King but Christ in His Church" in which he maintains rulers have power only to propose the keeping of fast days and days of thanksgiving, and to protect all from personal injury who would observe them. The consent of the people to keep the day is the only thing that can make it binding upon them.
     "When civil power encroaches an inch upon Christ's prerogative," he affirms, "a sanctified and enlightened conscience can never be compelled to a compliance; and if they are of the truth, and hear Christ's voice, no instruments of cruelty will avail anything in this attempt . . .. The least yielding in this case is dangerous, and a direct and leading step to a flood of persecution, however remote it may seem at present."




 

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