"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"
-180-
JULY
23, 1431 --Switzerland. Pope Martin V has appointed
Cardinal Cesarini as legate for the Council of Basel that today opens.
On December 18, 1431, Pope Eugenius will declare the Council dismissed,
but the Council members will ignore the Pope and will renew the
Anti-Papal decrees of the Council of Constance, and will state the
Council to be sovereign over the Pope himself. The Pope will be deprived
of the Annates, and other taxes.
Meanwhile revolution will break out in Rome forcing
Eugenius IV to flee to Florence. He will be the twenty-sixth Pope to
flee from Rome and the last before Pope Pius IX.
Leaders in the Greek Orthodox Church will be so
pressured for assistance in combating the Turks that they will willingly
sign a statement declaring the Bishop of Rome to be “Head” of the entire
Christian Church.
23, 1637 --Scotland. Sunday, William Laud has attempted unsuccessfully
to introduce into the Church of Scotland a liturgy he has composed
himself. Mr. Laud has sent the new service book to Edinburgh. Today as
Dean Hanney attempts to read it in St. Giles’ Cathedral, Jenny Geddes,
an elderly “herb-woman”, exclaims, “William, dost thou say mass at my
hig (ear)?” and throws a stool at him. A riot follows with people
shouting through the streets, “A Pope, a Pope! Antichrist! The Sword of
the Lord and of Gideon!” Robert Baillie writes, “Are we so modest
spirits and are we so towardly handled, that there is appearance we
shall embrace in a clap such a mass of novelties?”
The liturgy is withdrawn.
The very folding stool Jenny used is said to be exhibited in the
National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh.
23, 1702 --France. Pierre Segnier, a Huguenot preacher, declares the
Lord has ordered him to take up arms to deliver the captives and
exterminate Chayla, the “archpriest of Moloch”, who has imprisoned and
tortured Christians both men and women.
Fifty men will advance. Twenty are armed with guns and
pistols; the rest carry scythes and hatchets. They sing the
seventy-fourth Psalm as they approach.
When fired upon, they force the entrance to the house,
and then the dungeon where they find some of the prisoners so crippled
by tortures, they cannot stand. Infuriated, the men heap together the
soldiers’ straw beds, chairs, etc. and set the house on fire. Chayla
jumps from a window into the garden and breaks his leg. When he is
discovered, he is pummeled to death.
23, 1743 --England. Susannah Wesley dies at age seventy-three years.
23, 1764 --Pennsylvania. At Philadelphia Gilbert Tennent dies. A
Presbyterian, he has been a faithful as well as a popular preacher of
the Word of God. His popularity has been second only to that of George
Whitefield whom he has greatly admired and with whom he has preached.
23, 1845 --Prussia. The State makes a general concession today by
recognizing the Lutheran church on German soil. Dissenting congregations
are freed from taxes supporting the State church, and the official acts
of Lutheran ministers are recognized by the State. However, their houses
of worship are still not recognized as churches.
23, 1870 --China. Mrs. James Hudson Taylor dies and is buried at
Chinkiang beside her children who have died before her.