Jeanne d’Albret–Uncommonly Favoured; Uncommonly Fettered, and Uncommonly Faithful

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The Deborah of the Hugeonots

jdThe only one unlike her mother, Marguerite, Queen of Navarre and her cousin and Renee of France (Ferrara) who came out publically and claimed openly the protestant faith as her own. Her mother Queen Marguerite of Navarre was called the Nursing Mother of the Reformation.
She was a Princess, a future queen; given a fine education, and was born uncommonly favoured.

However her status also came with a price that left her uncommonly fettered. At age 12 at the demands of her Uncle, King of France (of whom the opening epistle of Calvin’s institutes was addressed to) she was betrothed against her will to the Duke of Cleeves as a political pawn, because her uncle saw it as a hope for a French and German
alliance. She made a written protest against this which even at that age showed her free spirit, and courage like that of a caged bird longing to be set free. Along with David as she sighed her silent tears when separated from her parents in the months leading up to her betrothal she must have wished for the wings of a dove so that she could fly away and be at rest.

For my father and my mother have forsaken me, But the LORD will take me up. Psalm 27:

Her written protest read:

I Jehanne de Navarre, continuing my protests already made, in which I persist, say and declare and protest again by these presents that the marriage proposed between me and the Duke of Cleves is against my will, that I have never consented to it, and that I never will. Anything that I may say or do after this because of which it could be said that I had given my consent, will have been because of force, against my will, out of fear of the King [Francis I], of my father the King, and of my mother the Queen, who had me threatened and beaten by… my governess…. [who said] that I would be the cause of the ruin and destruction of my mother and father and of their house. …I do not know to whom to appeal except to God, when I see that my mother and father have abandoned me. …I have told them that I would never love the Duke of Cleves and I do not want to have anything to do with him.

After the marriage she was not to live with her husband as his wife till she was 15 years old and she went back to live with her parents. Her mother at this point took over her education and brought in the best of Reformed teachers to bring her up in the Reformed faith. Both William Farrel and John Calvin were visitors at the royal home. However, 18 months after her marriage, the Duke of Cleeves made an unholy alliance with Charles V, the Emperor of the [un]holy roman empire, and he renounced his alliance with France, turned his back on the Protestant faith and sought to get Catholicism restored. The Duke’s sister however, Sabella stood up against Charles V and defied him, and defended the city against him whle her brother seemed to make very little resistance. She, another woman, made her stand.

Queen Marguerite and her brother the King of France were outraged at this turn of events and wanted Jeanne’s marriage annulled. The Duke of Cleeves also no longer desired Jeanne as a wife. The marriage had never been consummated and they used her earlier protest which she had written in staunch defiance as an to appeal to the pope as legitimate reason for annulment, so Jeanne was set free. The next three years, were probably what would be the most free of the rest of her life. She had many suitors including the King of Portugal and the infamous Duke of Guise. However she made her own choice in matrimony in that of the person of Antoine de Bourbon who was ten years her senior. Jeanne loved him, and for a while they were happily married. He was a courageous and somewhat remarkable soldier and very dashing in appearance.

Jeanne’s mother, Margueritte worn out by the battle of the day, of defending the cause of true religion died only a year after Jeanne was married. Their first child was born around two years after their marriage, a son, but he died at around one year old due to the neglect of his nurses. The second born child died also. Eventually she gave birth
to Henry, who would later become Henry IV of France. Two years after Henry was born, Jeanne’s father died and she became Queen of Navarre at around 27 years old.

Two months after her father died, inspired by her cousin Renee of Ferrara (of France) she made a public profession of the Reformed faith. The Jezebel of the day, Catherine De Medici was plotting to destroy Jeanne and hatched a plot to separate Jeanne from her husband; her aim was to try and lure him back to the Roman Catholicism and take away all of their estate and lands in Navarre.

Jeanne knew what was happening and raised an army to protect the Kingdom of Navarre. The more she was threatened and persecuted for her adhering to the Reformed faith, the bolder she was in defending it and speaking out in favour of it and her God. Her husband however, though strong and courageous on the battlefield proved weak in this battle
and soon went over to the side of the Guises and went back to Roman Catholiicism renouncing the Reformed faith. He went to Paris, demanding that his wife join him. She didn’t want to leave her Kingdom which had become a safe haven for the Huguenot’s but she submitted to her husbands wishes He then demanded that she go to mass with him. Catherine De Medici also put pressure on her to do so. Her response to their demands was: “Had I my kingdom in one hand, and my son in the other I would throw them both into the depths of the sea rather than go to mass.” For this act of defiance, Antoine took their son away from her and gave him a roman catholic upbringing, yet the boy remained loyal to his mother.

Antoine became a notorious infidel and was unfaithful again and again to his wife. Her kingdoms were sought from all sides. Spain wanted them, as did Rome, yet she stood firm holding onto her Lord and His cause and never faltered. On the death of her husband she sought to advance the Reformed faith in her Kingdom of Navarre. Theordore Beza at her request sent a dozen ministers to preach the gospel in Navarre. One of these preachers said of her: “The Queen of Navarre has banished all idolatory from her dominion and set an example of virtue with incredible courage.”

When the Spanish Ambassador told her they would not tolerate Calvinism so near to the borders of Spain, Jeanne replied: “Although I am just a little Princess, God has given me the government of this country so I may rule it according to the Gospel and teach it God’s laws. I rely on God who is more powerful than the King of Spain.”

Jeanne played a dangerous yet clever game by pitting all the powers that be that sought her destruction, Philip of Spain, Catherine De Medici and the pope, against each other by her actions. Akingdom divided against itself cannot stand. (Matthew 12:25)  Both her life and kingdom were held in the balance by her enemies, yet she trusted in God.

She continued to advance the cause of Christ in her kingdom and when she heard of the plot for a massacre of the Huguenots she gathered mountain troops in Navarre, so the St. Bartholomew’s massacre by the strength and fortitude of this “little Princess” was thwarted for about eight years. She declared: “The cause of God is dearer to me than my son.”

When forced to flee to La Rochelle she encouraged and rallied the troops; one young soldier who was protesting against having his arm amputated, she stood by his side speaking comforting words to him and held his hand why the surgeons amputated the other one. At the death of one of the great generals when the morale of the army was very low and she herself was also grieving over the death of General and dear friend, she re-dedicated herself, her lands, her wealth her son and her life to God and the Huguenot cause. She went out to the troops in an attempt to stir them up and encourage morale and said: “Children of God and of France-make proof of your valour soldiers, I offer you everything I have; my dominion, my treasure, my life, my child and all that’s dear to me; I swear to defend to my last the Holy cause that now unites us.”

She had the New Testament translated into the language of her people. she personally bore the financial cost of also having the Geneva Catechism translated and distributed among her subjects. In a peace treaty she helped form that lasted for two years she set about restoring her ravished kingdom. Even today she is spoken of as the good Queen who caused Navarre to prosper.

When Catherine De Medici and her army ordered her to lay down her arms, Jeanne replied: “We have come to the determination to die, all of us rather than abandon our God and our Reformed religion which we cannot maintain unless allowed to worship publically any more than a human body can live without food or drink.” This defiant stand caused again peace to reign again for awhile, though it was a very tentative peace.

Catherine De Medici wanted Jeanne’s son Henry to marry her daughter, Marguerite. Jeanne knew that to refuse this flat out could be the ruin of the Huguenot’s. She visited Paris to negotiate about the wedding and was horrified at the wickedness and debauchery rampant in the royal court. She wrote her son saying they wanted him there to separate him from God and from herself and that no one could live there in that atmosphere of wickedness and remain unscathed or get out alive spiritually speaking. However, she agreed to the marriage as long as Henry took his bride after the wedding and they lived in retirement from the royal court of the De Medici’s.

Jeanne arrived in Paris for the wedding of her son, and immediately started to become severely ill. It has since been proven that she was poisoned; another victim of the evil De Medici’s. One of the last things she said was “the many afflictions I have bore from my youth, i desire to retire and leave to be with God.” It is said she died with the sweetest, most beautiful smile on her lips. Two months after her death, the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre finally happened that she had managed to hold off almost single-handedly for eight years. Once she was gone, the power to stop it was gone. She gave her all for the cause of Christ. Health, wealth life, kingdom, ALL. She was the Deborah of the Huguenot’s who lived out that God’s grace was sufficient, who offered herself as a living sacrifice. she gave it all, and loved her God with all her heart, soul, and mind, and just like Deborah she could have also said:`“So may all your enemies perish, O LORD! But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.” [Judges 5:31]

The legacy of Jeanne d’Albret is that she is a figure in which we can see she lived out to trust God in all circumstances and conditions. To not value worldly things above the glory of God or heavenly things. To be willing to pick up our cross and follow Him even if we lose everything by so doing.

Her favourite Psalm was Psalm 31 and ironically it almost is a mirror of her life. Written by a persecuted, harassed, oppressed, godly King David. And lived out again, by “just a little princess” Jeane d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, of whom the world was not worthy. A Queen who was born uncommonly favoured; had a life uncommonly fettered, and remained uncommonly faithful.

Praise God for the wonderful cloud of witnesses we have to encourage and strengthen us in our own faith.

To The Soul Who Cannot and Will Not Be Comforted

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To the Distressed soul who thinks the comforts of the promises do not belong to them. A battle this blog ower is all too familar with.

The objections the distressed comfortless soul may make: First objection: “Yes,” says the soul, “those comforts are there and they are wonderful but only for those who have a right to them. They are not for me. Since I do not belong among these fortunate ones, I have no right to them, and they are of no use to me.”

Second objection: The soul uses this objection to reinforce the first one,- that is, these comforts do not exert any power on the soul and produce no fruit. “I cannot” says the assailed soul, “apply any of these comforts to myself. Even though it is true that there are these comforts you described, they are not intended for me because they do not help me”

To this we answer: First that the soul does not have sufficient grounds for what it says for and against itself, since it cannot prove it. Second, the souls judgment counts less here, since it is involved in this struggle, it cannot offer a correct judgement about itself. It is like a sick person who during his sickness cannot follow his own ideas. Thirdly we have already proved with several powerful, godly and sensitive arguments that this souls share in God’s grace, that it is a child of God., and that it has a right to all God’s comforts and promises. I ask now, would not the soul gladly enjoy God’s comfort? In other words, does not the soul strive with all diligence and strength to be precisely that which it says it is not? The soul answers yes to this question. And that answer is precisely the proof of God’s grace in the soul if it feels an unfeigned and heartfelt desire for the grace and goodness that it thinks and says it is lacking. And that cannot be the case unless a person has true knowledge of himself and his failures, as well as of grace and its necessity. Such knowledge a person receives only through God’s special grace.
–Johannes Hoornbeeck

This is a battle that great man of the Reformation, Martin Luther was all too familiar with. Casmannus wrote of Luther on this:

In 1527, the holy man Luther felt the heat of these trials so strongly, that he, ill in body and soul from them lay in bed, and later he himself testified that he would rather be imprisoned in the darkest dungeon his whole life than endure that pain again for one hour.”

If you know someone in such soul torments  do not do as the ignorant and ill-learned do and make matters a whole lot worse and increase their torment by mishandling the affliction  as I have had done over a long time, by those I was once closest to. If we cannot help, then let us refrain from harming.

You Who Are Thirsty, Come!

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“All you who are thirsty come to the waters, and you, who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes come, buy milk and wine without money and without price.” Who is invited here? Not the satisfied or rich but the thirsty ones, and that is precisely your soul. It is thirsty. To what is it invited? to fill its want; to share in and enjoy the milk and wine of God’s abundant and rich grace. He does not sell his grace, he grants it as a gift for nothing. After all, he gives his bread to the hungry. That is what a righteous person does, and that is, in the first place, what the Lord God does.
Do you not desire to reach out for that? Is this not the only thing that you seek? And how could you achieve that if you needed money or good works for it–efforts that first had to please God and on account of which He would then grant His grace? If that were so, then you would never share in His grace because you possess nothing. But just at that point when you say, “I do not have any money” then comes the loving invitation: “You who have no money, come, but without money and without price.” And in the next verse those are actually punished who “weigh out money for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which does not satisfy.” In John 7:37, we read, “And on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, “if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” So, as you notice, Jesus especially desires the thirsty souls and his promises his grace to them. In Jeremiah 50:4-5 we read, ‘In those days and in that time,” says the Lord “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping. They will go and seek the Lord their God. They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and be added to the Lord in an eternal covenant that will not be forgotten.”
—Johannes Hoornbeeck from “Spiritual Desertion”

Blog owners note: For those who are thirsty yet struggle with the battle of spiritual terrors, spiritual desertion or general lack of assurance, a battle I fight myself daily, so am all too familiar with it, remember that Scripture teaches that God takes the heart felt desire for the deed. So a heart felt desire and hungering and thirsting after righteousness, has already led to acceptance with God even if you don’t feel that is true. In Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says “Matthew 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” His words show that folk with that hunger are already blessed. He does not say they will be blessed or might be blessed. But Blessed are. Neither does He say, the self-righteous will be filled. It is people who go to God empty I believe with nothing of their own who face this battle with doubts and fears. And those are the very hearts, that God desires.

Exclude Oneself From Biblical Repentance, Exclude Oneself From Heaven

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[Blog Owner's note: There is a certain type of professor around, who uses the Bible as a tool to lash out at others, yet it never seems to go into their own heart and pierce or change them or bring them to Biblical repentance. It is merely a tool to beat others over the head with. You may know some folk like this, you may have at one time, before being savingly converted of that nature yourself. I confess I was. God in His mercy changed me.  I don't think I was ever blind to it, but as any Biblical Christian knows you cannot save yourself and you are helpless to help yourself.  But there are folk like this who seem totally blind to their own estate, unless they play the hypocrite. Some of these folk will often speak the most of concern about the salvation of others, as well as the sin of others, yet don't take the plank out of their own eye to see their own danger. These folk are in real danger, in part because they seem so blind to it. I believe presumption to be a damning sin.  I pray God may use this post to perhaps awaken some lost sinner out of their slumber.]

 

We saw yesterday that, of necessity, we are all condemned, that the true role of the Word of God is to remonstrate with everyone for their sins.This is necessary that we might recognise our sins to the end that  we become humble before God, in order to ask God for forgiveness and to show remorse for our sins. Now many are content to come before God in a spirit of meekness and humility accepting whatever condemnation God deems. For the most part they anticipate their condemnation and demonstrate such a displeasure of their sins as only to ask God to change their life. They offer themselves as a sacrifice that God might put to death their perverse nature, in order that they might be renewed in righteousness and in equity and in God’s justice. Other’s however, neither wish to receive nor hear this sort of teaching, but defy and dispute against God and remain hardened in their sins. Nonetheless, our Lord continues to pursue them. And those who return to Him willingly, become happy indeed. It is a beneficial and profitable death, for when the Sword of God’s Word passes into the depth of the heart, it sounds thoughts and evil affections, that all that is from us might be destroyed. Thus, when we come before God in that manner, we experience a happy death. But those who hope to exclude themselves, who do not want to be struck down in this life will be condemned in spite of themselves. Therefore, let us come before God and present ourselves to God in true repentance. May God’s Word be more than  a source of fables and pleasantries, but may it so enter our thoughts as to reform them, that nothing within us might ever impede God’s Word.
—John Calvin –Sermons on Micah

Tender Moments–Remembering September 11, 2001

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This is a repost–but very appropriate for today

Does anyone remember Sept 11 for anything BUT The World Trade Centre bombing in 2001? i saw a documentary not long ago on British Independant TV, and how a priest from that time, who was a Fire service chaplain, people were advocating him for sainthood, and that if any pheonix could rise from the ashes it ought to be Father Michael Judge, the homosexual priest. People need there heroes. The above kind of person fits and fulfills many peoples needs in this kind of thing. I recall after the WTC of 2001 Falliwell and Robsinson I think? stood on the steps of somewhere and said, oh This is God’s judgement against our country for the spread of homosexuality and abortion. And in part they may be right. But its easy for us to point at a sin which is and has never been our particular sin, as being the sole cause for anything, and to not look at ourselves and those around us within our circles and see that each of us has enough sin to drown the world in a plague if God so wished to judge. Its not just homosexualty or the murder of innocent babies, (tho I condone neither) its my sin and your sin, and every single person who ever drew breath apart from Our Lord. Did you notice Isaiah when giving His prophecy put the judgement for the people square at his own front door as well as everyone else. His lips were just as unclean as any of the peoples Isaiah 6:5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” (Whole Chapter: Isaiah 6 In context: Isaiah 6:4-6)

Some people tend to ask where you were and what you were doing when you heard of the WCT. I was listening to online radio, and as always when here my mail is open. And I saw those I knew expressing there shock and horror and amazement. I saw folk online puff their chest up proudly and utter much the same as Falliwell and Robbins. My friend Jerry, aka raging Calvinist, who seemed often to be a lone sane voice in those days, amongst much madness, the height of which had culminated in one final act of madness and the destruction of the WCT, well, he said he was going to wrestle with his kids, and just be silly people. it may not have been as prophetic as  some other people I knew who were speaking online at that time, but it was human, well focused and straight to the heart.. As often, we can make great statements and be blowing in the wind, and not take note or cherish the tender moments of those we love and who care for us. And time goes by, and the chance is gone. Another September 11 happens and destroys our dreams we can never get back. The tender moments, are what keeps sanity in an ever changing, ever hardening, ever uncaring largely unloving largely God-hating world.

Providence is Creation Continued

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The Spirit of God creates every day: what is it that continueth things in their created being, but providence? That is a true axiom in divinity, Providence is creation continued. Now the Spirit of God who created at first, creates to this day: “Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created.” The work of creation was finished in the first six days of the world, but the work of creation is renewed every day, and so continued to the end of the world. Successive providential creation as well as original creation is ascribed to the Spirit. “And thou renewest the face of the earth.” Thou makest a new world; and thus God makes a new world every year, sending forth his Spirit, or quickening power, in the rain and sun to renew the face of the earth. And as the Lord sends forth his power in providential mercies, so in providential judgments.
— Joseph Caryl

The Impenitent Continue Without Fear of God But Will Be Seized Suddenly

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Psalm 55:15 Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell.

A Puritan At Heart writes: This goes back to the cry of Heman in Psalm 73, when he felt resentful of the wicked who continued on in prosperity. Earlier in this Psalm 55 we are told in verse 19 they continue on because they have no change. We are told in Hebrews that God chastises those he loves. [Hebrews 12:6] If you see someone either backslidden, or living willfully in unrepentant sin and seem to prosper in it, then it is likely their profession is just that and nothing more. Whereas if you suffer, thank God for it. For as Hebrews said, God chastises those He loves [Hebrews 12:6] and as the Psalmist David confirmed by his Words of “Before I was afflicted I went astray but now I keep Thy statutes.” [Psalm 119:67]

[As a side note, I think this Psalm is an excellent example against anyone who refutes that there is ever a time or place for Imprecatory Psalms]

Quote by Puritan Anthony Tuckney,  On Psalm 55:15 The last part and end of sinners’ lives is worst with them. They have in their lives been busily trading in the world, buying and selling, and getting gain and ruffling it in the world, but meanwhile by their sins they run deep in debt with God, and for want of interest in Christ to be their surety at death (it may be on the sudden) it comes to that of the psalmist, Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell. Death seizes on them unawares, as a sergeant or pursevant, casts them into prison, which is expressed by their going down quick into hell (as it is said Nu 16:32-33), that Korah and his company did.

God’s Judgement Upon the Church

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Thomas Brooks in his late great fiery dispensation, which was about the great fire of London which came on top of the great plague. In God’s providence the fire was used to put the plague out, but London burned for sure. He put those calamities as God’s judgement particularly upon the profaning of the Sabbath Day, not by worldly folk but by professors of faith. The great fire of London also started on a Sabbath day.

I was reading this yesterday from Leviticus. We see prophecies in the Bible that has been fulfilled and sit here tsk tsking shaking our heads, yet the prophecy of today is also being fulfilled and God’s judgment is not upon the wicked so much as the professors within the visible church. Read these passages and see if we do not have these judgments upon us and if the Sabbath day once again by enlarge by the visible church is not used for pleasure and worldliness? People seem to deliberately misunderstand and blind oneself to this command as it is as clear as dunk all through the Bible. You have the off the wall proclamation that has not one bit of validity in Scripture of “We enter the rest of Christ.” I believe people blind themselves to this command because it goes against the flesh. It is convenient to say the Bible teaches otherwise. We berate the papists for doing away with the second command and dividing another one up into two to still keep the ten commandments but if we take out the Sabbath day we have done no different. The ten commandments cannot and will not change in nature of intent. By their very nature they cannot do so. The ten commandments are a revelation of the character of God to say any of them have changed (at all) is to say God must have changed, and that is an impossibility.

People are often quick to say they are lovers of the puritans. And I will always encourage folk to read those saints of old. Yet with New Reformed or New Calvinism it now gives alarm bells straight away as soon as I hear anyone say they “love the puritans” cuz it will prove 9 times out of ten to be one of the “Young, Reformed and Restless” crowd who have nothing in common with either Calvin, the Reformers or the puritans. They would disagree with them on almost everything. So how can they love them? They have become as a fashion accessory.

This was written in Volume one of the “Puritan papers” talking of the men and women of puritan England:

There is no justification whatsoever for the difference that undoubtedly exists between Puritan daily life and that of Christians today. We desire to have the Christian life made easy, and take it easily, but only spurious Christianity comes easily; true godliness demands self-discipline, self-examination, and a serious single-mindedness, and is unattainable without them.
—E. Braund-The Puritan Papers Volume I

I would suggest that also goes for the Sabbath and how it is done away with, seen as a church attendance thing and nothing more. Going to church makes no one a Christian no more than standing in a garage makes us a car.

Read these verses below and see if they depict an honsest picture of the visible church today no less than at the time God gave these words. And the judgement upon is on the way the church is languishing in decay? But worse could surely be to come. History confirms that, such as the events in London that Thomas Brooks wrote about. God is patient and long suffering but He will not be mocked. Are we going to ignore Hm and keep saying the Sabbath day is no longer sacred and that once we have attended church our duty is done? Love for the Lord should not make setting the whole day for worship and spiritual duties a chore or burden or a yoke. Cuz love for the Lord will face it with a right heart and spirit, a cheerful heart and the day set aside will be a delight and nothing burdensome at all.

We all fall short of keeping the Lord’s day and the commandments in general. But it is the intent or frame of the heart that counts. If our intent is to do our own thing, we show we love the world more than we love the Lord.

Obedience to the commandments has nothing to do with legalism, it has everything to do with love to God: John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”

Leviticus 26:3-7 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

Leviticus 26:30-39 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.

Leviticus 26:43-46 The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD. These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

Ignorance Is Often a Choice-Take Two

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As Pastor Joe Morecraft III said in his lectures on the Westminster Assembly, “You cannot be a good Christian without studying church history” The Bible also gives reasons to exhort one another to this subject. Psalm 22:4-5 and Psalm 78 just two examples out of many.

To re-iterate the subject of ignorance I refer you to this post from a few years ago. Ignorance is Often a Choice.

Obadiah Sedgwick

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Obadiah Sedgwick was born in the parish of St Peter in Marlborough, in Wiltshire, in England, in the year 1600. He received his grammatical education at or near the place of his birth. In the year 1616, he was sent to Queen’s College, Oxford; but not continuing long
there, he retired to Magdalen Hall, in the same university, where he took the degrees in arts. Having finished his academical studies, he entered into the ministerial office, and became chaplain to the Lord Horatio Vere, whom he accompanied to the low countries. After his return to his native country, he went again to Oxford, and, upon performing certain exercises, he was admitted to the reading of the sentences, in the latter end of the year 1629. He was tutor to Matthew Hale, who was afterward the much celebrated Lord Chief Justice. Leaving the university a second time, he became preacher at Mildred’s, bread Street, London; but was driven from his living and the people of his charge, by the merciless oppression and iron rod of the haughty prelate’s. In the year 1639, he became Minister of Cogges-Hall in Essex, where he continued two or three years. Upon the commencement of the Civil War wars, he returned to London, and to his ministry at Mildred’s, and was often called to preach before Parliament. In the year 1642, he became chaplain to Colonel Hollis’s Regiment in the parliaments Army. In the following year, he was appointed one of the licensers of the press for books of Divinity, and chosen one of the assembly of divines at Westminster, and he constantly attended. He was a very zealous covenanter. Wood says, “that the members of Parliament constituted him one of the assembly of divines, as being a covenanter to the purpose.” The same writer observes, evidently with a very hostile design, “that while Mr Sedgwick preached at Mildred’s, which was only to exasperate the people to rebel and confound episcopacy, it was usual with him, especially in hot weather, to unbutton his doublet in the pulpit, that his breath might be longer, and his voice more audible, to rail against the king’s party, and those who were near him, whom he called Popish councillors.” The same author adds, “he was a great leader and abettor of the Reformation pretended to be carried on by the Presbyterians; whose peaceable Maxims, like razors set with oil, cut the throat of majesty with a keen smoothness. This he did in an especial manner, in September 1644, when he, with great concernment, told the people, several times, that God was angry with the army for not cutting off delinquents.”

It has also been said, that Mr Sedgwick was “a creature of treason, rebellion, and nonsense,” even in his sermons before the parliament. But his sermons are extant, and how far he was guilty, every pious and judicious reader will easily judge. It has been, the common lot of the faithful friends and servants of Christ to be loaded with calumnies and reproaches, since the commencement of Christianity. The malicious Jews laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove; while he answered for himself, neither against the laws of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended anything at all. Acts 25: 7-8.

In the early 1646, Mr Sedgwick became preacher at Pauls Covent Garden; where he was much followed, and is said to have been instrumental in the conversion of many souls. Wood says, “that there, as also sometimes in the country, he kept up the vigour of a Presbyterian ministry, which for divers years prospered according to his mind.” In the year 1653, or 1654, he was by the parliament appointed one of the Tryers, or examiners of ministers; and in the year following, he was constituted one of the assistant commissioners of London for ejecting ignorant and scandalous ministers and schoolmasters. He was a very zealous Labourer in the Lords vineyard, and exceedingly active in promoting the work reformation. Mr Sedgwick finding at length, that his health began to decline, he resigned his charge, and retired to Marlborough, his native place, where he died about the beginning of January 1658, aged 57 years, and his remains were interred in the chancel of Oglarn, St Andrew, near Marlborough. He was esteemed a learned divine, and an orthodox and admired preacher.
–James Reid