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JANUARY

5, 1739 --England. The first Methodist conference meets today in England.

5,6 1743 --Wales. The Welch Calvinistic Methodist Connection conducts its first quarterly meeting. It is known in Wales as “Y Corff” or “the Body” and is considered the Presbyterian Church of Wales. Mr. George Whitefield is its president. He has been invited to attend by Mr. Howell Harris, the founder of Calvinistic Methodism, and who was awakened spiritually by one of Archbishop John Tillotson’s writings.

5, 1782 --England. At Buller’s Green, Morpeth, Robert Morrison is born. He will become the father of Protestant missions in China being appointed the first missionary there in modern times.

5, 1876 --Massachusetts. Rev. S. W. Foljamble in a sermon preached to the Massachusetts lawmakers declares, “Observe the hand of God in the wise and beneficient timing of events in the dawn of our history. The events of history are not accidents. There are no accidents in the lives of men or of nations. We may go back to the underlying cause of every event, and discover in each God’s overruling and intervening wisdom. It has been said that history ...is the autobiography of Him Who is graciously timing all the events in the interest of His Christ, and of the Kingdom of God on earth.”

6, 1088 --France. On the island of St. Cosme, Berengar of Tours dies. He has been the first public opponent of the Papist doctrine of Transubstantiation. His opinions have been condemned by the Council of Paris in 1050, the Council of Tours in 1055, the Council of Rome in 1059, the Council of Rouen in 1063, the Council of Poictiers in 1075, and again at the Council of Rome in 1078. At the councils of Tours and of Rome, he has appeared before Hildebrand. Shrinking from the thought of being burned at the stake, he has three times recanted his opinions but only to begin again preaching them. He stands accused not only of opposing the doctrine of transubstantiation, but of all the “heresies” of the Waldensians. Today he dies in his bed expressing deep sorrow for his vacillations because they have tarnished his testimony for the truth.

6, 1521 --Germany. A second Bull of Excommunication comes from the Pope denouncing Martin Luther and all his adherents.

6, 1740 --England. At Lidget Green, Yorkshire, John Fawcett is born. When he is sixteen years of age, he will be converted under the preaching of George White-field and in 1759 he will join the Baptist church. He will be best remembered for his hymn, “Blest Be the Tie That Binds,” which he will compose for his own congregation.

6, 1850 --England. On this snowy, Sunday evening, a fifteen year old boy makes his way into the Primitive Methodist Church on Artillery Street. The snow has hindered the pastor and nearly every member from coming tonight, so a deacon will assume the responsibility of preaching. His text will be Isaiah 45:22 --“Look unto Me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth; for I am the Lord, and there is none else.” It will be this very sermon that the Holy Spirit of God will use to convert Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He will join the Baptist church a short time later. When his mother expresses her concern that though she has prayed Charles would be converted but not that he would become a Baptist, the young man will reply that like always, God gives us more than we ask.
     He will become the best-known Baptist preacher perhaps of all time.

7, 1715 --France. Fenelon will die at Cambrai. Much furor has been raised since his name has come to be revered for his mystical approach to the Word of God, as well as his introspection. He has been eyed with suspicion on account of his charitable-ness towards Protestants.
He has said, “Even though God—indeed an impossible supposition—should destroy the souls of the just, or abandon them for eternity to the temptations and pains of this life, or condemn them for all eternity to the pains of Hell, these souls would none the less love Him and serve Him faithfully.”

7, 1801 --Connecticut. Wednesday, and at New Haven, Timothy Dwight preaches, “ ...With the rest of mankind, we have abused our blessings. Loose opinions and loose practices have found their place here also. The first considerable change in the religious character of the people of this country was accomplished by the war, which began in 1755. War is at least as fatal to morals as to life, or happiness. The officers and soldiers of the British armies, then employed in this country, although probably as little corrupted as those of most armies, were yet loose patterns of opinion and conduct, and were unhappily copied by considerable numbers of our own countrymen united with them in military life. These, on their return, spread the infection through those around them. Looser habits of thinking began to be adopted, and were followed, as they always are by looser conduct. The American War increased these evils. Peace had not, at the commencement of this war, restored the purity of life which existed before the preceding war. To the depravation still remaining was added a long train of immoral doctrines and practices which spread into every corner of the country. The Profanation of the Sabbath, before unusual, profanness of language, drunkenness, gambling and lewdness were exceedingly increased; and, what is less commonly remarked, but is perhaps not less mischievous, than any of them, a light, vain method of thinking concerning sacred things; a cold, contemptuous indifference toward every moral and religious subject. In the meantime, that enormous evil, a depreciating currency gave birth to a new spirit of fraud ...while a new and intimate correspondence with corrupt foreigners introduced a multiplicity of loose doctrines which were greedily embraced by licentious men, as the means of palliating and justifying their sins.
     “ . . .It was first Theism, or Natural Religion; then mere unbelief; then Animalism; then Skepticism; then Partial, and then Total Atheism. Yet it has in three things at least, preserved a general consistency: opposition to Christianity, devotion to sin and lust, and a pompous profession of love to liberty . . .. As if they had designed to give the last wound to virtue, they assumed all her titles and challenged all her attributes to their own con-duct. Daily forsworn, and laughing at the very distinction between right and wrong, they proclaimed themselves the assertors of justice, and the champions of truth.
     “ ...What communion hath light with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an Infidel? From a connection with them what can you gain? What will you not lose? Their neighborhood is contagious: their friendship is a blast; their communion is death. Will you imbibe their principles? Will you copy their practices? Will you teach your children that death is an eternal sleep? that the end sanctifies the means? that moral obligation is a dream? Religion a farce? and your Saviour the spurious offspring of pollution? Will you send your daughters abroad in the attire of a female Greek? Will you enroll your sons as conscripts for plunder and butchery? Will you make marriage a mockery at the registers’ office? ...Will you enthrone the Goddess of Reason before the table of Christ? Will you burn your Bibles? Will you crucify anew your Redeemer? Will you deny your God?
     “’Come out therefore from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father to you: and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.’
     “To this end, you must cooly, firmly and irrevocably make your determination and resolve, that Jehovah is your God, and that you will serve Him only. His enemies are the enemies of yourselves, and of your children; of your peace, liberty and happiness; of your religion, virtue and salvation. --Their Principles abhor; their practices detest . . ..”


7, 1921 --Scotland. Alexander Whyte dies. He is best noted for his Bible Characters, but has written other biographies: thirty-seven in all. He has recently preached a sermon entitled, “Study of the Swelling of Jordan” in which he preached on the deaths of our Lord Jesus Christ, the thief on the cross, Paul, Augustine, Luther and Butler. After three stanzas of “Just As I Am”, he concluded with “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;” and “when thou passest through the waters I will be with Thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”
 

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