The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

Double Foreview of the Reformation.419effect was immense. Both the learned and noble and the common people weremoved. "In many," says a chronicler of the sixteenth century, "was engendered soardent a desire to know the way of salvation, that artisans, carders, spinners, andcombers employed themselves, while engaged in manual labor, in conversing onthe word of God, and deriving comfort from it. In particular, Sundays and festivalswere employed in reading the Scriptures and inquiring after the goodwill of theLord [YAHWEH]."The pious Briçonnet, Bishop of Meaux, sent a copy to the sister of Francis I.,urging her to present it to her brother. "This from your hands," added he, "cannotbut be agreeable. It is a royal dish," continued the good bishop, "nourishingwithout corrupting, and curing all diseases. The more we taste it, the morewe hunger for it, with uncloying and insatiable appetite." "The gospel [goodtidings]," wrote Lefevre in his old age, "is already gaining the hearts of all thegrandees and people, and soon, diffusing itself over all France, it will everywherebring down the inventions of men." The old doctor had become animated ; hiseyes, which had grown dim, sparkled ; his trembling voice was again full toned.It was like old Simeon thanking the Lord for having seen His Salvation. Farel,the French reformer, maintained the sole sufficiency of the word of God as a ruleof faith, and the duty of returning to its use. In the great Protestant Confession ofAugsburg it is by a simple reference to Scripture that the new doctrines of theReformation are justified. From first to last, from its incipient germ in the soul ofLuther to the crowning day of the Reformation, the Bible was very heart and coreof the movement ; and Protestantism has since deluged the world with Bibles. Doyou wonder then that prophecy makes the giving of a "little book open" to therepresentative of the Church at that time a leading feature of its prefiguration?But you must note next that this was not the only thing given to John by themighty Angel. There follows a great commison, which he was to execute.He who of old had said to His disciples, "Go you into all the world, andproclaim the glad tidings to every creature," renews this commission to Johnin his representative character, and says to him, "You must prophesy(or preach) again, before many peoples, and nations, andtongues, and kings." It is a second sending to the world of the gospel[good tidings] message, a second appointment of witnesses to proclaim the gladtidings.And this was needed, for the fundamental ordinance of gospel [good tidings]preaching had long fallen into entire disuse among Romanists ; the preacher hadbeen lost in the sacrificing priest : the people had for ages had none to break tothem the bread of life. Luther shrank at first from the office of a preacher, but itwas forced on him by circumstances. After he had finished his translation of thebook, and returned from his seclusion in the Wartburg. he began to publish thetruth from the pulpit as well as through the press. "It is not from men," he wrote tothe Elector, "that I received the gospel [good tidings], but from heaven, from theLord Jesus [Master Yahshua] ; and henceforth I wish to reckon myself simply Hisservant, and to take the title of evangelist." He began to preach in an old woodenhall in Wittemberg, and soon the largest church were thronged to hear him. Withintwo or three years the gospel [good tidings] was being preached as well as read all