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Truth Advances in Britain
145
the horrible cruelties which Rome employed were resorted to but
rarely by Protestant rulers, yet the right of every man to worship God
according to his own conscience was not acknowledged. Dissenters
suffered persecution for hundreds of years.
Thousands of Pastors Expelled
In the seventeenth century thousands of pastors were expelled
and the people were forbidden to attend any religious meetings
except such as were sanctioned by the church. In the sheltering
depths of the forest, those persecuted children of the Lord assembled
to pour out their souls in prayer and praise. Many suffered for their
faith. The jails were crowded, families broken up. Yet persecution
could not silence their testimony. Many were driven across the
ocean to America and there laid the foundations of civil and religious
liberty.
In a dungeon crowded with felons, John Bunyan breathed the
atmosphere of heaven and wrote his wonderful allegory of the pil-
grim’s journey from the land of destruction to the celestial city.
Pilgrim’s Progress and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
have guided many feet into the path of life.
In a day of spiritual darkness Whitefield and the Wesleys ap-
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peared as light bearers for God. Under the established church the
people had lapsed into a state hardly to be distinguished from hea-
thenism. The higher classes sneered at piety; the lower classes were
abandoned to vice. The church had no courage or faith to support
the downfallen cause of truth.
Justification by Faith
The great doctrine of justification by faith, so clearly taught by
Luther, had been almost wholly lost sight of; the Romish principle of
trusting to good works for salvation had taken its place. Whitefield
and the Wesleys were sincere seekers for the favor of God. This,
they had been taught, was to be secured by virtue and observance of
the ordinances of religion.
When Charles Wesley at one time fell ill and anticipated that
death was approaching, he was asked upon what he rested his hope