Later English Reformers
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the Lord assembled to pour out their souls in prayer and praise. But
despite all their precautions, many suffered for their faith. The jails
were crowded. Families were broken up. Many were banished to
foreign lands. Yet God was with his people, and persecution could not
prevail to silence their testimony. Many were driven across the ocean
to America, and here laid the foundations of civil and religious liberty
which have been the bulwark and glory of this country.
Again, as in apostolic days, persecution turned out to the further-
ance of the gospel. In a loathsome dungeon crowded with profligates
and felons, John Bunyan breathed the very atmosphere of Heaven, and
there he wrote his wonderful allegory of the pilgrim’s journey from
the land of destruction to the celestial city. For two hundred years that
voice from Bedford jail has spoken with thrilling power to the hearts
of men. Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “Grace Abounding to the
Chief of Sinners” have guided many feet into the path of life.
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Baxter, Flavel, Alleine, and other men of talent, education, and
deep Christian experience, stood up in valiant defense of the faith
which was once delivered to the saints. The work accomplished by
these men, prescribed and outlawed by the rulers of this world, can
never perish. Flavel’s “Fountain of Life” and “Method of Grace” have
taught thousands how to commit the keeping of their souls to Christ.
Baxter’s “Reformed Pastor” has proved a blessing to many who desire
a revival of the work of God, and his “Saint’s Everlasting Rest” has
done its work in leading souls to the “rest that remaineth for the people
of God.”
A hundred years later, in a day of great spiritual darkness, White-
field and the Wesleys appeared as light-bearers for God. Under the rule
of the established church, the people of England had lapsed into a state
of religious declension hardly to be distinguished from heathenism.
Natural religion was the favorite study of the clergy, and included
most of their theology. The higher classes sneered at piety, and prided
themselves on being above what they called its fanaticism. The lower
classes were grossly ignorant, and abandoned to vice, while the church
had no courage or faith to any longer support the downfallen cause of
truth.
The great doctrine of justification by faith, so clearly taught by
Luther, had been almost wholly lost sight of, and the Romish principle
of trusting to good works for salvation, had taken its place. Whitefield