"Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that GOD should raise the dead?" -Acts 26:8-

SO IT IS WITH RELIGION

A clown performing at a fair

So aped a piglets squeal

His feats were lauded everywhere,

For men believed them real.

But he alone had made the sound;

There was no little pig around.

Next day he tried another act,

With screeches louder still,

So sharp it seemed the hall was racked

And pierced as by a drill:

Then everyone began to hiss—

No pig, all said, could sound like this.

And yet, beneath his blouse, concealed,

A bristly creature lay.

And when he pricked its skin, it squealed

In the ancient porcine way.

BUT OFTEN TRUTH WINS NO OVATION

WHILE CROWDS ACCLAIM AN IMITATION.

-AESOP’S FABLES, verse by Stanton Coblentz

"WOMEN PREACHERS ARE SCRIPTURAL --

when FIRST, they can prove they are the husband of one wife’, since such is the requirement of a ‘bishop’ according to I Timothy 3:2, and SECOND, When they can stand behind the pulpit and preach, and all the while remain obedient to I Corinthians 14:34: ‘Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak....’

‘Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.’" --I Timothy 2:11,12

October

16, 1555 – At Oxford, England, Hugh Latimer and Bishop Ridley will be led to a wooden stake to be burned to death. They will embrace each other, kneel in prayer and kiss the stake. The sight of the stake will make Ridley tremble. "Be of good cheer, brother Ridley, and play the man. We shall light such a candle in England today as will never go out!" Witnesses will declare Latimer seemed to embrace the flames.

1812—Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia, dies at Tocat in Armenia where His remains still lie buried. He is 31 years of age. Having read the Letters, which William Carey published, he felt sensible of God’s calling him to labor in India and Burma.

17, 1650-- John Flavel is ordained to the Gospel ministry.

18, 1685 --The Edict of Mantes is revoked and the freedom of worship enjoyed by French Huguenots under Henry IV and Louis XIII is denied. Reformed worship is declared illegal and protestant churches are ordered demolished. Such pastors are given two weeks to leave the kingdom and are forbidden to perform ministerial duties on threat of being sentenced to the galleys. Protestant schools are closed, and infants born before the revocation are ordered re-baptized by priests and educated as Roman Catholics. All refugees are to return to France and abjure their protestant religion within 4 months, after which non-compliance is to be punished with the confiscation of all property. All protestants are forbidden to quit the kingdom under pain of the galleys if men, and of confiscation of body and goods if women.

19, 1685 --La Reynee, lieutenant of the police of Paris, issues notice to the Huguenot trades people and working classes, requiring them to be instantly converted. Many of them being terrified accordingly conform.

26, 1751 --This Saturday, at age 49 years, Philip Doddridge dies. In addition to being a veteran pastor and founding an academy, he has written the devotional classic, The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul which William Wilberforce will read and will come to Christ. Wilberforce will be largely responsible for the freeing of slaves in the British Empire 50 years before the American War Between the States. Doddridge has also written such notable hymns as "0 Happy Day" and "Awake My Soul Stretch Every Nerve."

28, 1887 --Charles Spurgeon withdraws from the Baptist Union because "Believers in Christ atonement are now in declared union with those who make light of it; believers in Holy Scripture are in confederacy with those who decry plenary inspiration: those who believe in evangelical

doctrine are in open alliance with those who call the fall a fable, who deny the personality of the Holy Ghost, who call justification by faith immoral, and hold that there is another probation after death. Yes, we have before us the wretched spectacle of professedly orthodox Christians publicly avowing their union with those who deny the faith, and scarcely concealing their contempt for those who cannot be guilty of such gross disloyalty to Christ. To be very plain, we are unable to call these things Christian unions: they begin to like confederacies in evil.... It is our solemn conviction that where there can be no real spiritual communion, there should be no pretence of fellowship. Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin."

1919 --The Prohibition Act is passed. Alcoholic beverages are now illegal in the United States.

30, 1322 --Jacques Lefevre will publish in French the four Gospels today.

1698 --Claude Brousson, the Huguenot leader, has been arrested and sent to Montpelier where he is imprisoned in the citadel. He could have escaped at Somail, during the night while his guards slept, but having promised the Intendant of Beam he would not attempt to escape. He was allowed to go unfettered.

31,1517 --This is REFORMATION DAY, for on this eve of All Saint’s Day, Martin Luther nails his ninety-five theses to the church door at Wittemburg, Germany. He is calling into question the Pope’s abuse of the people’s faith. This is the recognized commencement of the Protestant Reformation.

"SIR, YOU ARE TOO STRICT!"

Will you say that when the eyes of the Almighty are glowering on you? "Sir, you are too precise." Will you say that to God Almighty’s face? Can you say that at the judgment bar of God at the last day? You will not dare to do it then. Ah! When Christ comes a second time there will be a marvelous change in the way men talk. "Caiaphas, come and condemn Him now!" "Judas, will you kiss Him now?" "Barnabas, see if the people will prefer you to Christ now!"

"Swearer, you have been a bold man; curse Him to His face now." "Drunkard, stagger up to Him now." "Infidel, now tell Him there is no Christ, tell God there is no God. Laugh at the Bible; smirk at the minister."

"What is the matter? Why can’t you do it? Because you have fled to the rocks and to the hills crying, "Rocks, hide us! Mountains fall on us; hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne."

-Charles Haddon Spurgeon