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SEPTEMBER

7, 1631 --Germany. Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant king of Sweden, is victorious over Tilly at Breitenfeld. Thus the Protestantism of northern Germany is preserved. Swedish troops will continue to roam Germany until Wallenstein forces Adolphus to vacate Bavaria.

7, 1641 --Massachusetts. At a Quarter Court, Mr. William Collins, "a man of learning," and who had married Mrs. Anne Hutchinson's daughter, "being found a seducer," and Francis Hutchinson, for calling the Church of Boston "a whore, etc." were both fined and banished upon pain of death. Nearly two years later, both together with Mrs. Anne Hutchinson will be killed by the Indians.

7, 1785 --England. Several conferences have been held in London the result being that today William Fox, Jonas Hanway, Henry Thornton, and Thomas Raikes (brother of the renowned Robert Raikes) together with three others form the "Society for the Support and Encouragement of Sunday Schools in England." It will be popularly known as the "Sunday School Society."

7, 1789 --Maryland. It is Monday, and Frances Asbury writes, "Preached at Rowle's: here fifty or sixty souls profess to have been converted to God in a few weeks. We had a shout, and a soul converted, to God . . .."

7, 1807 --China. Robert Morrison arrives at Conton by way of New York. The East India Company has refused him passage on its ships, but when he becomes a proficient scholar in Chinese, it will be glad to use him as its interpreter.
     In 1818, with the help of Mr. William Milne, he will complete his translation of the Bible into Chinese, followed by a Chinese Dictionary in 1823. The latter will be published by the East India Company at a cost of 12,000 pounds sterling.

8, 1495 --Italy. Pope Alexander VI issues a brief in which he prohibits Savonarola to preach.

8, 1500 --Italy. Pietro Matire Vermigli is born. His pious father has been strongly influenced by the preaching of Savonarola. Mr. Vermigli will become doubtful of the Romanist doctrine of Purgatory because of I Corinthians 3:12-15. As a result, he will publish a tract for which he will be summoned to appear at Genoa. Fearing the consequences, he will flee to the city of Pisa.

8, 1713 --Italy. Clement XI issues a constitution. It is called "Unigenitus" and it condemns one hundred and one propositions advanced by Pasquier Quesnel. It will successfully quell the struggle with Jansenism, a sect within the Roman Church that denies any possibility of cooperation of free will as taught by semi-pelagianists. Henceforth, these doctrines are forbidden in Roman Catholic communion. Among them are the following --
     5) "When God does not soften the heart by the inner unction of His grace, exhortations and external graces avail only to harden it the more."
     10) "Grace is the operation of the hand of Almighty God, which nothing can hinder or retard."
     13) "When God wishes to save a soul, and touches it with the inner hand of His grace, no human will resists it."
     21) "The grace of Jesus Christ is a strong, potent, supreme, invincible grace, seeing that it is the operation of Almighty will, the sequence and the initiation of the working of God incarnating and revivifying His Son."
     30)"All whom God wills to save through Christ are saved infallibly."
     32) "Jesus Christ gave Himself to death to liberate forever those first born through His blood; that is, the Elect, from the hand of the destroying angel."
     38)"The sinner is not free except to evil without the grace of the Saviour."
     39) "The will which grace does not anticipate has no light except for erring, no ardor except for hurling itself headlong, no strength except for wounding itself, is capable of all evil, and incapable of any good."
     59) "The prayer of the impious is a fresh sin; and what God grants them is a fresh judgment against them."
     74) "The Church, or the whole Christ, has the incarnate Word as its head, and all the saints as its members."
     79) "It is useful and necessary at every time, in every place, and for every class of persons to study and to know the spirit, piety, and mysteries of Sacred Scripture."
     80)"The reading of Sacred Scripture is for all."
     81) "The Sacred obscurity of the Word of God is no reason for the laity to dispense themselves from its reading."
     82)"The Lord's Day ought to be sanctified by Christians by readings of piety, and above all, of the Sacred Scriptures; it is wrong to restrain the Christian from this reading."

     These doctrines are henceforth forbidden with Roman Catholic communion.



    
 

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