-59-
      

MARCH

 8, 1673 --England. Parliament reassembles, and the Declaration of Indulgence for Tender Consciences which has suspended all laws issued against those refusing to conform to the worship of the Church of England is withdrawn; and licenses issued under the Indulgence granting liberty to such preachers and assemblies is also withdrawn.

8, 1716 -France. So thorough has been his unrelenting persecution of the Huguenots that today Louis XIV declares Protestantism is non-existent in France. Known as “The Most Christian King,” his favorite mistress weighs her bread during Lent so as not to transgress the austerity of fasting. So Louis XI would swear and kiss his crucifix, then swear again, and kiss his crucifix again.

8, 1740 --Pennsylvania. At Nottingham, Gilbert Tennent preaches—

            “As a faithful ministry is a great ornament, Blessing and Comfort to the Church of
God: even the feet of such messengers are beautiful: so on the contrary, an ungodly ministry is a great curse and judgment: These catepillars labor to devour every green thing...
             “Isn’t it a principal part of the ordinary call of God to the ministerial work to aim at the glory of God, and in subordination thereto, the good of souls, as their chief marks in their understanding that work? And can any natural man on earth do this? ...
              “Is a blind man fit to be a Guide in a very dangerous way? Is a Dead man fit to bring others to life? A mad man fit to give counsel in a matter of life and death? A possessed man to cast out Devils? A rebel, an enemy to God, fit to be sent on an Embassy of Peace to bring rebels into a state, a friendship with God? A captive bound in the massy chains of darkness and guilt, a proper person to set others at liberty? A leper fit to be a good physician? Is an ignorant rustic that has never been at sea in his life fit to be a Pilot to keep vessels from being dashed to pieces upon rocks and sandbanks? Isn’t an unconverted minister like a man who would teach others to swim before he has learned it himself? (So, he) is drowned in the act, and dies like a Fool . . ..
         “The ministry of natural men is dangerous both in respect of the Doctrines and Practice of Piety. The doctrines of Original Sin, Justification by Faith alone, and the other points of Calvinism are very cross to the Grain of unrenewed nature; and though men by the influence of a good education, and Hopes of preferment may have the edge of their natural enmity against them blunted; yet it’s far from being broken or removed. It is only the Saving Grace of God that can give us a true Relish for those Nature-humbling doctrines; and so effectually secure us from being infected by the contrary. Is not the carnality of the ministry, one great cause of the general spread of Arminianism, Socinianism, Arianism, and Deism at this day through the world?”

8, 1777 --New Jersey. Near Freehold, William Tennent II dies. A brother to Gilbert, he is the Presbyterian pastor of the “Old Tennent Church” here.

8, 1864 --New York. Jeremiah (Jerry) McAuley, has been sentenced to fifteen years here in Sing Sing Prison after having been arrested and convicted of highway robbery. He is innocent, but while here has been converted. Today, Governor Dix pardons him after proof of his innocence is laid before him. He will embrace Methodism and will found two missions as a “helping hand for men.”

8, 1887 --New York. In Brooklyn, Henry Ward Beecher dies. The 4th son of Lyman Beecher, he is a Congregationalist who has diverged from orthodoxy first, in the Person of Christ Whom he considers to be the Divine Spirit under the limitations of Time, Space, and Flesh; Second, the Miracles which he considers Divine uses of natural laws; and third, Future Punishment, the endlessness of which he denies in favor of a modified position of the Annihilation theory.

9, 320 --Turkey. The persecution under Licinius has begun, and able Christians are to be put to death. Today, when the law is read to a group of Roman soldiers, forty profess themselves to be Christians. They are immediately stripped of clothing and left exposed all night on the frozen lake. All freeze to death—except one: he recants, but when he is given a warm bath to counteract his exposure, he too will die. The pagan guard hearing of it, confesses Christ and himself suffers martyrdom by freezing, thus making the number forty. The bodies will afterward be burned and the ashes cast upon the water.

9, 1672 --France. Marc-Antoine Calas in a fit of melancholy has hanged himself in his father’s house. Roman Catholics have spread the rumor the son was about to embrace Catholicism when his father murdered him. Jean Calas, a respectable Protestant merchant of Toulouse, has been seized, tried and condemned to death.
        Today, he dies on the wheel and his body is burned. The family property is confiscated, and the family in part flees to Geneva. Voltaire will champion his case. A reversal will be served, the family property restored, and a pension will be granted his widow.

9, 1802 --France. A special statement is issued declaring other churches equal rights with the Roman Catholic church because it is the duty of the state to protect the noble-minded Protestant minority.

9, 1875 --England. Dwight Lyman Moody opens evangelistic services in London.

Previous   Next