The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

332Pre-Reformation Interpreters.Theobald's ' Hussite War,' p. 150, 1624 ; Reiger's ' History of the Bohemian Brethren,' vol.ii., p. 592 ; Regenvolscius, ' Systema Hist. Eccles. Sclavonic.')." - "The Reformation andAnti-Reformation in Bohemia," p. 13.But from their ashes rose new witnesses. From the persecuted Bohemianssprang the Moravians, who this day are missionaries throughout the world!Turn lastly, for a moment, to England. Before the Reformation, 500 yearsago, God raised up in this country John Wicliffe. Men called him "the morningstar of the Reformation." He translated the Scriptures into the English tongue,and waged war against the errors and abominations of the Church of Rome. Howdid Wicliffe interpret these prophecies? Just as the Waldenses did. Here is one ofhis books filled with references to the pope as antichrist. He wrote a specialtreatise, entitled Speculum de Antichristo (" The Mirror of Antichrist "). FromWicliffe sprang the English Lollards. They numbered hundreds of thousands.What was their testimony? Let me give it to you in the words of one of them, LordCobham, that famous man of God, who lived just a century before Luther.When brought before King Henry V. and admonished to submit himself to thepope as an obedient child, this was his answer: "As touching the popeand his spirituality, I owe them neither suit nor service,forasmuch as I know him by the Scriptures to be the greatantichrist, the son of perdition, the open adversary ofGod, and an abomination standing in the holy place."Remaining firm in his rejection of Romish error and refusal to bowdown to the Papacy, Lord Cobham was condemned to death as a heretic.John Fox tells us that on the day appointed for his death, in the year 1417,Lord Cobham was brought out of the Tower of London, " with his arms boundsbehind him, having a very cheerful countenance. Then he was laid upon a hurdle,and so drawn forth into St. Giles' Field, where they had set up a new pair ofgallows. As he was coming to the place of execution, and was taken from thehurdle, he fell down devoutly upon his knees, desiringAlmighty God to forgive his enemies. Then stood he up andbeheld the multitude, exhorting them in most godly manner to follow thelaws of God written in the Scriptures, and in any wise to bewareof such teachers as they see contrary to Christ in their conversation andliving; with many other special counsels. Then he was hanged up there by themiddle, in chains of iron, and so consumed alive in the fire, praising thename of God as long as his life lasted."In other words, he was roasted to death. They were burned, burned, theseblessed men of God! Huss was burned; Jerome was burned, Lord Cobham wasburned. Even Wicliffe's bones were dug up, forty-one years after his death, andburned. Savonarola, who preached with trumpet tongue that Rome was Babylon,was burned. All these were burned before the Reformation, and thousands more.Their testimony was not burned! It lived on! Fire could notscorch it ; chains could not bind it ; gags could not silence it ; gaols could notdestroy it. Truth is immortal, truth is unconquerable. Imprison it, and it comesforth free ; bury it, and it rises again ; crush it to the earth, and it springs up