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January 18, 2019 - January 22, 2022
Henry, whose attachment to Protestantism was as zealous as had been that of his deceased brother to Popery.
But the Council of Trent began by repudiating this maxim, which is comprehensive of all Protestantism.
#reformedtheology
"The Innocent One is condemned and the criminal is acquitted." "It is the cross of Christ alone that openeth the gates of heaven and shutteth the gates of hell."
#reformedtheology
This enlarged Psalter was first published at Geneva, with a commendatory preface by Calvin, in 1543. Editions were published in Holland, Belgium, France, and Switzerland, and so great was the demand that
#reformedtheology #psalter
Had he blasphemed Christ only, he would have been forgiven: he had blasphemed Mary, and could have no forgiveness.
This is the doctrine of AntiChrist. #reformedtheology
Calvin's — of the college after every other light had been extinguished, and long after the midnight hour had passed. His teachers formed the highest hopes of him.
"There can be no Church," we hear Calvin saying to himself, "where the truth is not. Here, in the Roman Communion, I can find only fables, silly inventions, manifest falsehoods, and idolatrous ceremonies.
The Pope," concluded Calvin, "is but a scarecrow, dressed out in magnificences and fulminations.
It is the Bible, preached by the evangelist, and testified to by the martyr, that is to bid the Gospel, like the day, shine forth and bless the earth.
"Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve. Will ye abide by the Papacy, or will ye cast in your lot with the Reformation?"
staunch Roman Catholic Raemond complaining, "the minister was hid under the cloak of the magister," "the young were lost before they were aware of their danger," and "many with only down on their chins were so incurably perverted, that they preferred being roasted over a slow fire to renouncing their Calvinism."
D'Aubigne, "He went to the Gospel springs, and there collecting into a golden cup the pure and living waters of Divine revelation, presented them to the nations to quench their thirst."
Neuchatelans inscribed on a pillar of the cathedral the words — ON THE 23RD OCTOBER, 1530, IDOLATRY WAS OVERTHROWN AND REMOVED FROM THIS CHURCH BY THE CITIZENS.
but that he did possess power – calm, inflexible, resistless power – they all knew, for they all felt it.
Because in Geneva the nation was the Church, and the ecclesiastical ordinances were also the laws of the State.
They engaged to frequent public worship regularly, to bring up their children in the fear of the Lord, to renounce all debauchery, all immoral amusements, to maintain simplicity in their clothing, frugality and order in their dwellings."
"These hands you may crush; these arms you may lop off; my life you may take; my blood is yours, you may shed it; but you shall never force me to give holy things to the profane, and dishonor the table of my God."
Innocent shut the Word of God to the nations, by arrogating to himself the office of its sole infallible interpreter; Calvin threw open the sacred volume, by asserting the right of all to read and interpret it for themselves.
Calvin governed by God; Innocent governed as God. CHAPTER 25
Liberty without the Gospel is but a miserable slavery."
"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones, Forget not: in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmentese, that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundredfold, who, having learned thy way,
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These cruel proceedings, however, so far from arresting the progress of the Reformed opinions, only served to increase
The first and primary root of this, as of all similar massacres in Christendom, is the divine vicegerency of the Pope.
At these conventicles the Psalms of David, which had been translated into Low Dutch from the version of Clement Marot, and Theodore Beza, were always sung.
the States of Holland, at an assembly at Leyden, resolved to prohibit the public exercise of the Romish religion.
On the 26th May, 1578, the Stadthouse was surrounded by armed citizens, and the magistrates were made prisoners.
It is no doubt true, as we are often reminded, that the great Defender of the Church is her heavenly King; but it is equally true that he saves her not by miracle, but by blessing the counsels and the arms, as well as the teaching and the blood of her disciples.
Not fewer than three sermons a week were to be preached "in all public places," and on the afternoon of Sunday the Heidelberg Catechism was to be expounded in all the churches.
All that is valuable in the Netherlands is drawn out of the heap, and gathered round the great principle of Protestantism, and set apart for liberty and glory; all that is worthless is thrown away, and left to be burned in the fire of despotism.
The Popish jurisdiction cannot be resisted by conscience, because, claiming to be infallible, it is above conscience. The Protestant jurisdiction, on the contrary, leaves conscience free to resist it, should it exceed its just powers, because it teaches that God alone is Lord of the conscience.
Up till the year we have named, the Church of the Netherlands was strictly Calvinistic, but now a party in it began to diverge from what had been the one common theology of the Reformation.
"Henceforward we shall no longer be able to oppose Popery."
The decay of Holland became marked from the time the Arminian party gained the ascendency.
he maintained that the Scriptures were the one sole basis of Reformation; that neither from tradition, however venerable, nor from custom, however long established, were the doctrines of the Church's creed or the order of her government to be deduced; that neither Councils nor Fathers could infallibly determine anything; that apostolic practice, as recorded in the inspired canon that is to say, the Word of God – alone possessed authority in this matter,
After John Alasco, but not equal to him, arose Prince Radziwill. His
He defrayed the expense of the printing of the first Protestant Bible at Brest, in Lithuania, in 1563.
Prince Radziwill
There is no era like this, before or since, in the annals of Poland. Protestantism had reached its acme in that country. Its churches numbered upwards of 2,000.
The national intellect, invigorated by Protestant truth, began to expatiate in fields that had been neglected hitherto.
Protestantism produces freedom and enlightens the mind, while Roman Catholicism enslaves and produces poverty.
Tutored by Jesuitical councillors, Henry proposed to assume the crown, but to evade the oath.
the Roman bishops now claimed payment of their tithes from Protestant landlords, and attempted to take back the churches which had been converted front Romanist to Protestant uses.
"I have plotted no treason," he said; "I have committed no murder; I have done no deed worthy of death. I die because I have been faithful to the Gospel and my country. O God, pardon my enemies, for they know not what they do. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
Twenty-one ministers passed out at the gates at early morning, followed by some hundreds of citizens. After they had gone a little way the assembly halted, and drawing aside from the highway, one of the ministers, John Matthiades, preached a farewell sermon to the multitude, from the words, "They shall cast you out of the synagogues."
Protestant persecution in Bohemia by the Papists.
fathers held up their infants to be devoted in baptism to Him for whom they themselves were willing to lay down their lives; and amid
The first grand settlement between the Romanists and the Protestants was the Pacification of Augsburg, in 1555.
Medici lacked the talent of her famous predecessor, Catherine de Medici, but she possessed all her treachery, bigotry, and baseness. She was a profound believer in witchcraft, and guided the vessel of the State by her astrological calculations.
The fete-days of the Church abridged the working year of the latter to 260 days; whereas that of the Protestant contained 50 days more, or 310 in all.
The Reformation removed the sacrifice of the mass and restored the Word of God, it banished the priest and brought back the preacher.
These wars broke the power of feudalism, and raised the kings above the Papal chair.
The reforming movements which we have traced in both the Lutheran and the Calvinistic countries are about to culminate in the British Reformation – the top-stone which crowns the edifice of the sixteenth century.
knowing that ignorance was the nurse of the numerous superstitions that deformed his day, and the rampart around those monstrous evils he had so unsparingly reprobated.
Dean Colet
