The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

Double foreview of the Reformation.405in a wonderful way to details. The Apostle in 1. Cor. X shows this, and statesthat, not only was Israel's history typical, but that it was divinely ordered that itmight be so ; in other words, it was intentionally prophetic. "These things," hesays, "happened to them for ensamples (or types, -greek-) and are written for ourinstruction." Not only are they recorded for our warning, buth they occurred inthe providence of God in order that they might foreshadow the experiences of theChristian Church, and that she might learn from them solemn and needed lessons.The incidents of Jewish history actually happened, that they might be typesof Christian history ; and Divine foreknowledge is as much exemplified in thiscorrespondence between type and antitype as in that between prediction andfulfilment.I am to show you this evening, then, two sets of predictions of the Reformation,one acted in Jewish history, the other symbolized in apocalytic prophecy ; the oneembodied in the story of the Old Testament, the other in the symbolic predictionsof the New.Before I can do this, you must allow me to remind you with some degree ofaccuracy what the Reformation was, as to its broad historical characteristics.It was not the formation of the Church, but its re-formation after its ruinby Romanism. It was not a first beginning, but a second. Pentecost formed theChurch ; Propery deformed it ; Protestantism reformed it. Pentecost occurredin the first century, and is associated with the work of the apostles themselves.The Reformation did not occur till the sixteenth century, and was not completedtill the seventeenth, and is associated with such names as Luther and Calvin,Zwingle and Knox, Cranmer and Latimer. The first belongs to ancient history,the last to modern times. A great chronological cap of nearly fifteen hundredyears lies between the two. There were the early ages of first love, apostolic zeal,rapid extension, martyr suffering, noble confessions and apologies ; followed byother centuries of imperial Christianity, growing corruption, of bitter strife andambitious rivalries ; and these again by a thousand years of Papal domination andever-deepening moral darkness, - before the glad light of the Reformation brokeover the earth. It is a late episode of Church history, not an early one.And further. When it did take place, its results were very partial. It hasaffected but a portion of apostate Christendom. It has not brought back to the faithof Christ Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, or Belgium. The reformed nationsmay be the mightiest, the wealthiest, and the most progressive ; but they constituteonly a fraction of Roman Christendom. The greater part of it remains involvedstill in the Papal apostasy.Moreover Protestantism - priceless as have been the benefits it has conferred onthose whoe have joined its ranks - is yet very far from being a perfect recovery ofprimitive Christianity. It has risen out of the gross ignorance and superstitionof mediæval Romanism ; it has altogether abandoned the idolatry of imageworship, virgin worship, saint worship, and the adoration of the priest-madewafer deity of the Latin mass ; it has recovered a purer faith and a simplerritual, and secured for the Church a measure of liberty and independence ;above all, it has circulated the Scriptures in vulgar tongues on the nationsof Christendom, and has adopted as its motto, " The Bible, the whole Bible,