On this day, in the year 1622, a 44 year old capuchin friar known as Fidelis of Sigmaringen was trying to convert the inhabitants of Seewis im Prättigau, (in eastern Switzerland,) to Romish superstition. This was a Reformed City, and they had mustered in order to defend their community against the military onslaughts of the pope and his minions. A platoon arrested him outside a church, where he was fomenting popish errors, and executed him for the crime of heresy. Well done. Glory be to God!
For Reformation Sunday:
Monday, October 31, 2022 marks the 505th anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting of the 95 theses on the door of the cathedral church in Wittenberg, which is often referred to as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Click on the following link to listen to audio of a lecture that I gave on another Reformer, Ulrich Zwingli and “The Swiss Reformation” in Denver at Providence Orthodox Presbyterian Church five years ago to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18mfsgXEQGtlJdJk-_eOSCSToBoBwRWx-/view?usp=drivesdk
(Tap the down arrow “download” icon and it should play for you.)
Monday, October 31, 2022 marks the 505th anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting of the 95 theses on the door of the cathedral church in Wittenberg, which is often referred to as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Click on the following link to listen to audio of a lecture that I gave on “The German Reformation” in Denver at Providence Orthodox Presbyterian Church five years ago to mark the 500th anniversary:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K_y4vfaQD4OaPAsAUjqwQlucvK8QKjGS/view?usp=drivesdk
(Tap the down arrow “download” icon and it should play for you.)
Millennials and older grew up in a moribund Christendom that was on its last leg here in the USA. There’s no going back to that. The foundations must be rebuilt. We’re going to party like it’s 1620.
In the third century Athanasius felt like the entire world was against him for preaching the true doctrine of Christ and he was literally banished from the Roman empire entirely. The heresy of Arianism was en vogue, similar to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Claiming that the Son is the first creation of the Father. Which is not a Savior. But within a generation or two the Arians were banished from the empire. And the preaching of the True doctrine of Christ was being promulgated by men like Gregory Nazianzus, basil the great and Gregory of Nyssa, after the framing of the Nicene creed, with the support of the empire.
Be encouraged. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. We win eventually!
As our reformed forefathers taught us in the midst of terrible persecution against the Church of Christ, when the civil government and the body politic is shaking its fist at God and spitting at the sky, trying to throw off his yoke (Psalm 2), that is the exact time to proclaim the sovereign authority of God and his law over all nations and governments. It’s more important than ever.
The Belgic confession was written in 1559 (by Guido de Brès) when the false church of Rome was fiercely persecuting the reformed churches. It was literally thrown over the city wall as a statement of faith to the Roman Catholic rulers. Note what it says about the civil magistrate:
36 Of Magistrates
We believe that our gracious God, because of the depravity of mankind, has appointed kings, princes and magistrates, willing that the world should be governed by certain laws and policies; to the end that the dissoluteness of men might be restrained and all things carried on among them with good order and decency. For this purpose he has invested the magistracy with the sword, for the punishment of evildoers, and for the protection of them that do well. And their office is, not only to have regard unto, and watch for the welfare of the civil state; but also that they protect the sacred ministry; and thus may remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship; that the kingdom of antichrist may be thus destroyed and the kingdom of Christ promoted. They must therefore countenance the preaching of the Word of the gospel everywhere, that God may be honoured and worshipped by every one, as he commands in his Word. Moreover, it is the bounden duty of every one, of what state, quality, or condition soever he may be, to subject himself to the magistrates; to pay tribute, to show due honour and respect to them, and to obey them in all things which are not repugnant to the Word of God; to supplicate for them in their prayers, that God may rule and guide them in all their ways, and that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Wherefore we detest the Anabaptists and other seditious people, and in general all those who reject the higher powers and magistrates, and would subvert justice, introduce community of goods, and confound that decency and good order, which God has established among men.
In the former book I did not venture to judge the peasants, since they had offered to be set right and to be instructed, and Christ’s commands, in Matthew 7:1, says that we are not to judge. But before I look around they go on, and, forgetting their offer, they betake themselves to violence, and rob and rage and act like mad dogs. By this it is easy to see what they had in their false minds, and that the pretences which they made in their twelve articles, under the name of the Gospel, were nothing but lies. It is the devil’s work that they are at, and in particular it is the workof the archdevil who rules at Muhlhausen, and does nothing else than stir up robbery, murder, and bloodshed; as Christ says of him in John 8:44, “He was a murderer from the beginning.” Since, then, these peasants and wretched folk have let themselves be led astray, and do otherwise than they have promised, I too must write of them otherwise than I have written, and begin by setting their sin before them, as God commands Isaiah and Ezekiel, on the chance that some of them may learn to know themselves.
Then I must instruct the rulers how they are to conductthemselves in these circumstances.
The peasants have taken on themselves the burden of three terrible sins against God and man, by which they have abundantly merited death in body and soul. In the first place they have sworn to be true and faithful, submissive and obedient, to their rulers, as Christcommands, when He says, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” and in Romans 13:2, “Let everyone be subject unto the higher powers.” Because they are breaking this obedience, and are setting themselves against the higher powers, willfully and with violence, they have forfeited body and soul, as faithless, perjured, lying, disobedient knaves and scoundrels are wont to do. St. Paul passed this judgment on them in Romans 13, when he said, that they who resist the power will bring a judgment upon themselves. This saying will smite the peasants sooner or later, for it is God’s will that faith be kept and duty done.
In the second place, they are starting a rebellion, and violently robbing and plundering monasteries and castleswhich are not theirs, by which they have a second time deserved death in body and soul, if only as highwaymen and murderers. Besides, any man against whom it can be proved that he is a maker of sedition is outside the law of God and Empire, so that the first who can slay him is doing right and well. For if a man is an open rebel every man is his judge and executioner, just as when a firestarts, the first to put it out is the best man. For rebellion is not simple murder, but is like a great fire, which attacks and lays waste a whole land. Thus rebellion brings with it a land full of murder and bloodshed, makes widows and orphans, and turns everything upside down, like the greatest disaster. Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel. It is just as when one must kill a mad dog; if you do not strike him, he will strike you, and a whole land with you.
In the third place, they cloak this terrible and horrible sinwith the Gospel, call themselves “Christian brethren,” receive oaths and homage, and compel people to hold with them to these abominations. Thus they become the greatest of all blasphemers of God and slanderers of His holy Name, serving the devil, under the outward appearance of the Gospel, thus earning death in body and soul ten times over. I have never heard of more hideous sin. I suspect that the devil feels the Last Day coming and therefore undertakes such an unheard-of act, as though saying to himself, “This is the last, therefore it shall be the worst; I will stir up the dregs and knock out the bottom.” God will guard us against him! See what a mighty princethe devil is, how he has the world in his hands and can throw everything into confusion, when he can so quickly catch so many thousands of peasants, deceive them, blindthem, harden them, and throw them into revolt, and do with them whatever his raging fury undertakes.
It does not help the peasants, when they pretend that, according to Genesis 1 and 2, all things were created free and common, and that all of us alike have been baptized. For under the New Testament Moses does not count; for there stands our Master, Christ, and subjects us, with our bodies and our property, to the emperor and the law of this world, when He says, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Paul, too, says, in Romans 13:1, to all baptized Christians, “Let every man be subject to the power,” and Peter says, “Be subject to every ordinance of man.” By this doctrine of Christ we are bound to live, as the Father commands from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son; hear him.” For baptism does not make men free in body and property, but in soul; and the Gospel does not make goods common, except in the case of those who do of their own free will what the apostles and disciplesdid in Acts 4:32. They did not demand, as do our insane peasants in their raging, that the goods of others, — of a Pilate and a Herod, — should be common, but only their own goods. Our peasants, however, would have other men’s goods common, and keep their own goods for themselves. Fine Christians these! I think there is not a devil left in hell; they have all gone into the peasants. Their raving has gone beyond all measure.
Since the peasants, then, have brought both God and man down upon them and are already so many times guilty of death in body and soul, since they submit to no court and wait for no verdict, but only rage on, I must instruct the worldly governors how they are to act in the matter with a clear conscience.
In the second century the Jewish nation suffered terribly under the occupation of the Macedonian king Antiochus Epiphanes. Many people had been slaughtered including children. The temple of the Lord was profaned with sacrifices of pigs to the Greek god Zeus and whores. It was illegal to keep the law God especially the Sabbath day, and those who broke this rule were martyred. Two women were cast off the wall with their nursing babies in their arms. Eleazar, a conscientious priest was put to the rack when he spit out pork that was forced into his mouth in violation of the Mosaic dietary laws. Jason of Cyrene writes,
“Now I urge those who read this book not to be depressed by such calamities, but to recognize that these punishments were designed not to destroy but to discipline our people. In fact, not to let the impious alone for long, but to punish them immediately, is a sign of great kindness. For in the case of the other nations the Lord waits patiently to punish them until they have reached the full measure of their sins; but he does not deal in this way with us, in order that he may not take vengeance on us afterward when our sins have reached their height. Therefore he never withdraws his mercy from us. Though he disciplines us with calamities, he does not forsake his own people.” Jason of Cyrene, circa 110 BC (2 Maccabees 6:12-16)
So I was reading from some second century BC Jewish tradition called the book of first Maccabees recording a history of events in the second century BC in Judea. An alliance is recorded between Jonathan the leader of the Jews and the Spartans and the Romans against Syria and some of their correspondence is included. It is there affirmed that the Spartans are related to the Jews and sons of Abraham, which was apparently something that was commonly noted in antiquity. Fascinating.
Dear Friends, Brothers, and Sisters,
Did you know that 2019 marks the 500th anniversary of the Swiss Reformation, that which birthed, not the Lutheran, but the Reformed churches?! We haven’t heard much about it this year, have we? But here it is.
On January 1, 1519, when a priest named Ulrich Zwingli began his ministry at the Großmünster cathedral in Zürich, Switzerland he did something radical. He began preaching through the gospel according to Matthew at the beginning of chapter one, and continued until he finished the book! In preaching through Matthew, Zwingli revived the ancient practice of the lectio continua, the continuous reading and preaching through books of the Bible as opposed to the lectio selecta, the selective lectionary noting different passages for different Sundays and holy days. The result was epic. It led to the Reformation in Switzerland, the most thoroughly biblical and intentional Reformation of them all, exerting tremendous influence in Scotland, England, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, and all over the world, conforming the belief and practice of the Church to the word of Christ and removing those unwarranted doctrines and practices which had crept in slowly over the ages in the Roman Catholic Church.
Luther’s Reformation in Germany in many ways tried to retain as much tradition from Rome as possible without contradicting the gospel, including its view of the corporeal (physical) presence of Christ in holy communion, feast days, altars, allowing vestments, and lectionary readings. In comparison to the German Reformation, to which we Reformed are nonetheless very much indebted, the Swiss Reformation was much more thoroughgoing in its Sola Scriptura “Scripture Alone” approach to the worship and government of the church, casting aside those practices that did not have a Scriptural warrant. And this emphasis on practicing only that form of worship and government that has Scriptural warrant, still guides the worship and government of our Reformed churches today in the OPC and in sister churches.
It is in commemoration of this providence of God 500 years ago that I have published a book summarizing the German and Swiss reformation, comparing and contrasting the two. At a mere 48 pages, it is accessible and possibly a helpful introduction for a churchgoer or other interested person who would like to have a basic grasp of the persons and events of the Protestant Reformation. It is written in a warm and affectionate tone as the fruit of my readings and study of this topic. I hope that this little book may be beneficial to some.
The Reformation in Germany and Switzerland is available for order here.
The paperback costs $5.45. The e-book is $3.99.
Be blessed! Give thanks for God’s work in history. And be Reformed!
High Plains Parson 