A “Striking Lesson”

If the Reformation, having attained a certain point, became untrue to its nature, begin to parley and temporize with the world, and ceased thus to follow up the spiritual principle that it had so loudly proclaimed, it was faithless to God and to itself. Henceforward its decline was at hand. It is impossible for a society to prosper if it be unfaithful to the principles it lays down. Having abandoned what constituted its life, it can find naught but death…

One portion of the Reform was to seek the alliance of the world, and in this alliance find a destruction full of desolation.

Another portion, looking up to God, was haughtily to reject the arm of the flesh, and by this very act of faith secure a noble victory.

If three centuries have gone astray, it is because they were unable to comprehend so holy and solemn a lesson.

D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation, Book XIV

Don’t Bathe With a Heretic

The apostle John once entered a bath to bathe; but, learning that Cerinthus was within (he was a heretic notable for a theology which said Christ’s kingdom was an earthly kingdom,which lead to the indulgence of many wicked fleshly desires, -ed), he sprang from the place and rushed out of the door, for he could not bear to remain under the same door with him. And he advised those that were with him to do the same, saying, “Let us flee, lest the bath fall; for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.”

-as relayed by Eusebius, ch 28, paragraph 6

The Anniversary of the Death of Rev. Lawrence Saunders, Feb. 8, 1555

From Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
text from ccel.org

Mr. Saunders, after passing some time in the school of Eaton, was chosen to go to King’s College in Cambridge, where he continued three years, and profited in knowledge and learning very much for that time. Shortly after he quitted the university, and went to his parents, but soon returned to Cambridge again to his study, where he began to add to the knowledge of the Latin, the study of the Greek and Hebrew tongues, and gave himself up to the study of the Holy Scriptures, the better to qualify himself for the office of preacher.