Willison's Recommended Sabbath Reading

John Willison (1680-1750), Church of Scotland minister, has the following reading advice for Christians in his "A Treatise Concerning the Sanctification of the Lord's Day" (links provided to works cited and biographical information about the authors where possible for the interested reader):

I am persuaded there is no better way in this world for improving the faculty of sight, and the benefits of light, than by reading the word of God. So far as time can allow you upon the Sabbath, I judge it  very profitable to read other good books also, such as our Confession of Faith, [Thomas] Vincent's Catechism [An Explanation of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism]., Vincent on the last Judgment [Of Christ's Certain and Sudden Appearance to Judgment], [William] Guthrie's Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ [The Christian's Great Interest], [Joseph] Alleine's Alarm [to the Unconverted], [Richard] Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, [Edward] Pearse's Preparation for Death, Fox's Time and the End of Time [by John Foxe], [Thomas] Doolittle's Call to Delaying Sinners, Baxter's Saints' Everlasting Rest, his Poor Man's Family Book, [Andrew] Gray's Sermons, [John] Flavel's Touchstone of Sincerity, his Saint Indeed, [Matthew] Mead's Almost Christian, the Treatises of Doolittle, Campbell and Henry upon the Sacrament [Thomas Doolittle, A Treatise on the Lord's Supper; Daniel Campbell, Sacramental Meditations on the Sufferings and Death of Christ; Matthew Henry, The Communicant's Companion], [Samuel] Rutherfoord's Letters, the Fulfilling of the Scriptures [by Robert Fleming, Sr.], Clark's Martyrology [Samuel Clarke's (1599-1683) General Martyrologie], [Thomas] Beard's Theatre of God's Judgments. These, and such like books, next to the Holy Bible, I recommend to the perusal of all private Christians, as being easy and plan to common capacities, and some of the most generally useful, instructing, awakening, soul-searching, and heart-warming pieces, that I have seen among human writings, and which have been blessed to the edification of many thousands.

MHCC 41: Fox, Lion and Dog

Matthew Henry on Judges 9:

It is an account of the usurpation and tyranny of Abimelech, who was base son to Gideon; so we must call him, and not more modishly his natural son: he was so unlike him....Of this meteor, this ignis fatuus of a prince, that was not a protector but a plague to his country, we may say, as once was said of a great tyrant, that he came in like a fox, ruled like a lion, and died like a dog. "For the transgression of a land, such are the princes thereof."

John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Vol. 1, p. 503:

Wherefore this Boniface [VIII] was worthily called the eighth Nero; of whom it was rightly said, He came in like a fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a dog.

Boniface VIII, consigned by Dante to the lowest circle of hell in his Inferno, ascended to the papacy by the art of craft (according to legend he engineered the abdication of Pope Celestine V, whom he succeeded, by rigging a tube into his room and persuading him that voice of God was instructing him to resign; Celestine was later captured, and possibly assassinated by Boniface), authored the Unam sanctam, "one of the most extreme statements of Papal spiritual supremacy ever made" (stating that it "is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff"), fought with King Philip IV of France, was captured and released, suffering the indignity of Sciarrillo Colonna's famous "Slap" in the face, but shortly thereafter died insane, supposedly gnawing off his own fingers.

Andrew Stevenson, The History of the Church and State of Scotland, Vol. 1, p. 115:

Nigh about this same time the good archbishop [George] Abbot died, and was succeeded in the see of Canterbury by [William] Laud bishop of London, of whom it may be said, as of old it was said of Boniface, Intravit ut vulpes, regnavit ut leo, obiit ut canis, "He came in like a fox, he reigned like a lion, and died like a dog."

The New England Primer Martyr: An Historical Correction

Although thousands, if not millions, of schoolchildren have read and even memorized the famous poem in The New England Primer (published by Benjamin Harris) ascribed to the Marian Martyr John Rogers, and the poem itself has had a deeply profound effect on many, the historical circumstances of its authorship and subsequent printing have obscured the deaths of not one but two saints.

The Primer says:

MR. JOHN ROGERS, minister of the gospel in London, was the first martyr in Queen MARY's reign, and was burnt at Smithfield, February 14,1554. His wife with nine small children, and one at her breast following him to the stake; with which sorrowful sight he was not in the least daunted, but with wonderful patience died courageously for the gospel of JESUS CHRIST.

Some few days before his death, he wrote the following Advice to his Children.

Whereupon follows the famous poem (which may be read here in the 1777 ed.).

First, it should be noted that John Rogers actually was burned at the stake on February 4, 1555, rather than February 14, 1554.

Second, John Rogers had eleven children rather than nine. John Foxe and others historians of the age record that his wife attended his execution with ten children at her side and one infant at her breast. George Livermore (The Origin, History and Character of the New England Primer, p. 34) supposes that the error originated as typographical mistake:

The error may at first have been merely typographical -- arising from the transposition of the numerical letters XI, as originally printed in Foxe. Later historians, copying at second hand, have helped to perpetuate the error.

Finally, the poem itself was first published in England in 1559 in a book with the title John Rogers' Primer and ascribed to "An exhortation of Mathewe Rogers vnto his children." From early on, it was ascribed -- erroneously, as it turns out -- to John Rogers, who was the first of the Marian Martyrs, when, in fact, the true author was another by the name of Robert Smith, who was executed on August 8, 1555. He wrote several poetic compositions -- unlike Rogers -- two of which were conflated to create the poem reprinted in the Primers ("Smith was the author of several poems, and the one given in the Primer is made up, with some alterations and omissions, from two of his pieces," Livermore, ibid, p. 36). An early edition of John Rogers' Primer "bears the name of Thomas Mathew, which was assume'd by Rogers in his translation of the bible; and hence, it may be, he obtain'd the name of Mathew Rogers, unless it were, more likely, a mistake of M. (i.e. master) Rogers. He, too, was a Martyr in the same year with Smith, to whom Foxe, a diligent collector, and good authority, ascribes the poem in question" (Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The New-England Primer: A History of Its Origin and Development, p. 250).

Robert Southey, The Book of the Church, p. 342:

Robert Smith, one of the martyrs here alluded to, wrote several poems in prison. The following lines from that which he addressed to his children, are well worthy of preservation, the circumstances under which they were written giving them a deep interest.

---- That ye may follow me, your father and your friend,
And enter into that same life which never shall have end,
I leave you here a little book for you to look upon,
That you may see your father's face when I am dead and gone:
Who, for the hope of heavenly things, while he did here remain,
Gave over all his golden years in prison and in pain,
Where I among mine iron bands, enclosed in the dark,
Not many days before my death, did dedicate this work
To you, mine heirs of earthly things which I have left behind,
That ye may read, and understand, and keep it in your mind,
That as you have been heirs of that which once shall wear away,
Even so ye may possess the part which never shall decay.
In following of your father's foot in faith, and eke in love,
That ye may also be his heirs for evermore above:
And in example to your youth, to whom I wish all good,
I preach you here a perfect faith, and seal it with my blood.

HT: Henry Christoph, Jr.

Great Lion of God

Pastor Jean Léger (1615-1670), Histoire générale des églises évangéliques des vallées de Piémont ou Vaudoises (1669):

...though [Joshua Gianavel] possessed the courage of a lion, he was as humble as a lamb, always giving to God the glory of his victories; well versed in Scripture, and understanding controversy, and of great natural talent.

Rora (2001) is a fictionalized account by James Byron Huggins of the remarkable true story of Joshua Gianavel (Giosuè Gianavello), a farmer-warrior who led the resistance to the famous 1655 Waldensian Massacre in the Valley of Piedmont at a little place called Rorà, Italy. I have enjoyed reading it and commend it highly.

Gianavel, whose story is told in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, first spied soldiers attempting to attack his valley of Rorà as the Massacre was underway. Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, had given the order for a general massacre of Waldensians to begin at 4:00 am, April 24, 1655. It was an unprovoked attack, the culmination of centuries of hostilities by French Catholics against peaceful Waldensians.

The Waldensians had borne witness to the true gospel for hundreds of years, and when the Reformation began, they sent emissaries to meet with German Reformers in 1526 and 1530. On behalf of the Swiss and German Reformed Churches, William Farel attended the Waldensian Synod of Chanforan in 1532, at which time the Waldensians officially joined the Reformation. That same year, John Calvin's cousin, Pierre Robert Olivétan, was charged with writing a translating of the Bible to be used by the Waldensians, which was published in 1535 as the French Olivétan Bible. King Francis I soon exterminated the Waldensians of France in 1545, but in 1561, the Treaty of Cavour permitted religious liberty to the Waldensians of Piedmont.

A century later, as hatred of the Waldensian "heretics" mounted amongst the Catholics who surrounded their homeland in the Alps, the Duke of Savoy launched his attack on the Valley, intending to wipe them out once and for all. When Gianavel spied the soldiers coming towards his village, he gathered together six other men, and successfully employed guerrilla warfare tactics to repel the invaders. Increasing waves of soldiers attacked the vastly outnumbered men of Rora but were consistently thwarted in their efforts to subdue the inhabitants, often returning to their base with many casualties of their own and no dead Waldensians to show for it. Thousands of Waldensians were slaughtered in other parts of the Valley, to be sure, men, women and children, but Rora was defended by a militia captain who trusted not in weapons or numbers, but in the Lord God. After each victorious skirmish, Gianavel and his men would kneel and worship God, returning thanks to him in prayer and often singing the eleventh Psalm.

The general commanding the Duke's forces, the Marquis de Pianessa, was enraged that his tactics were being thwarted by a handful of farmer peasants.

Foxe's Book of Martyrs 6.3-4:

The marquis of Pianessa was greatly enraged at being so much baffled by the few inhabitants of Roras: he, therefore, determined to attempt their expulsion in such a manner as could hardly fail of success.

With this view he ordered all the Roman, catholic militia of Piedmont to be raised and disciplined. When these orders were completed, he joined to the militia eight thousand regular troops, and dividing the whole into three distinct bodies, he designed that three formidable attacks should be made at the same time, unless the people of Roras, to whom he sent an account of his great preparations, would comply with the following conditions:

1. To ask pardon for taking up arms. 2. To pay the expenses of all the expeditions sent against them. 3. To acknowledge the infallibility of the pope. 4. To go to mass. 5. To pray to the saints. 6. To wear beards. 7. To deliver up their ministers. 8. To deliver up their schoolmasters. 9. To go to confession. 10. To pay loans for the delivery of souls from purgatory. 11. To give up captain Gianavel at discretion. 12. To give up the elders of their church at discretion.

The inhabitants of Roras, on being acquainted with these conditions, were filled with aa honest indignation; and, in answer, sent word to the marquis, that sooner than comply with them they would suffer three things, which, of all others, were the most obnoxious to mankind, viz,

1. Their estates to be seized. 2. Their houses to be burnt.— 3. Themselves to be murdered.

Exasperated at this message, the marquis sent them this laconic epistle.

To the obstinate Heretics inhabiting Roras. You shall have your request, for the troops sent against you have strict injunctions to plunder, burn, and kill.

PIANESSA.

The three armies were then put in motion, and the attacks ordered to be made thus: the first by the rocks of Vilaro; the second by the pass of Bagnol; and the third by the defile of Lucerne.

The troops forced their way by the superiority of numbers, and having gained the rocks, pass, and defile, began to make the most horrid depredations and exercise the greatest cruelties. Men they hanged, burnt, racked to death. or cut to pieces; women they ripped open, crucified, drowned, or threw from the precipices; and children they tossed upon spears, minced, cut their throats, or dashed out their brains. One hundred and twenty-six suffered in this manner, on the first day of their gaining the town.

Agreeable to the marquis of Pianessa's orders, they likewise plundered the estates, and burnt the houses of the people. Several protestants, however, made their escape, under the conduct of Captain Gianavel, whose wife and children were unfortunately made prisoners, and sent under a strong guard to Turin.

The marquis of Pianessa wrote a letter to captain Gianavel, and released a protestant prisoner that he might carry it him. The contents were, that if the captain would embrace the Roman catholic religion, he should be indemnified for all his losses since the commencement of the war; his wife and children should be immediately released, and himself honourably promoted in the duke of Savoy's army; but if he refused to accede to the proposals made him, his wife and children should be to put death; and so large a reward should be given to take him, dead or alive, that even some of his own confidential friends should be tempted to betray him, from the greatness of the sum.

To this epistle, the brave Gianavel sent the following answer.

My Lord Marquis,

There is no torment so great or death so cruel, but what I would prefer to the abjuration of my religion: so that promises lose their effects, and menaces only strengthen me in my faith.

With respect to my wife and children, my lord, nothing can be more afflicting to me than the thoughts of their confinement, or more dreadful to my imagination, that their suffering a violent and cruel death. I keenly feel all the tender sensations of husband and parent; my heart is replete with every sentiment of humanity; I would suffer any torment to rescue them from danger; I would die to preserve them.

But having said thus much, my lord, I assure you that the purchase of their lives must not be the price of my salvation. You have them in your power it is true; but my consolation is, that your power is only a temporary authority over their bodies: you may destroy the mortal part, but their immortal souls are out of your reach, and will live hereafter to bear testimony against you for your cruelties. I therefore recommend them and myself to God, and pray for a reformation in your heart. Joshua Gianavel.

Gianavel was able to save his young son from the ruins of his village, and brought him north to be cared for by relatives, but in fact, his wife and three daughters were burned alive.

Oliver Cromwell and his diplomats, including John Milton, as well as other Protestant nations, pressured the French and Savoy governments to cease persecution of the Waldensians, but the war continued until relative peace was achieved by the Patente de Turin of 1664, which, however, excluded Gianavel from the terms of amnesty. He retired to Geneva, where he served the Waldensian cause in other indirect ways. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy was pressured into violating the peace terms and renewing the effort to exterminate the Waldensians of the Valley. When Waldensian refugees entered Geneva in 1686, the aged militia captain was there to greet them in a memorable, emotional embrace.

One of Milton's most famous sonnets was written in 1655 in response to the Massacre.

John Milton, Sonnet XVIII: On the Late Massacre in Piedmont:

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,

Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones;

Forget not: in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold

Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd

Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

The vales redoubl'd to the hills, and they

To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow

O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway

The triple tyrant; that from these may grow

A hundred-fold, who having learnt thy way

Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

Patrick's Places

The first Protestant martyr of Scotland was Patrick Hamilton, who was burned at the stake for the gospel on February 29, 1528, at St. Andrews. I have stood on the site where he was executed. He wrote one book, his Loci Communes Theologici, in Latin, probably in 1526, while in Marburg, Germany, which was translated by John Frith into English in 1532 as Dyvers Frutful Gatheryngs of Scripture Concerning Fayth and Workes (Diverse Fruitful Gatherings of Scripture Concerning Faith and Works), but it is most commonly known as Patrick's Places. It is recorded in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Book 8 § 165. It contains brief propositions concerning the law and the gospel. Frith referred to this book as the "pith of all divinity"; it was the first theological treatise of the Scottish Protestant Reformation. Below is an extract on the gospel, evangelical and eloquent in its simplicity.

The doctrine of the gospel.

The gospel is as much as to say, in our tongue,good tidings; like as these be hereunder following, and such others, Luke ii. 10.
Christ is the Saviour of the world, John iv. 42.
Christ is the Saviour, Luke ii. 11.
Christ died for us, Rom. v. 6.
Christ died for our sins, Rom. iv. 25.
Christ bought us with his blood, 1 Pet. i. 19.
Christ washed us with his blood, Rev. i. 5.
Christ offered himself for us, Gal. i. 4.
Christ bare our sins on his back, Isa. liii. 6.
Christ came into this world to save sinners, 1 Tim. i. 15.
Christ came into this world to take away our sins, 1 John iii. 5.
Christ was the price that was given for us and our sins, 1 Tim. ii. 6.
Christ was made debtor for us, Rom. viii. 12.
Christ hath paid our debt, for he died for us, Col. ii. 14.
Christ made satisfaction for us and our sins, 1 Cor. vii. 23.
Christ is our righteousness, 1 Cor. i. 30.
Christ is our sanctification, 1 Cor. i. 30.
Christ is our redemption, 1 Cor. i. 30.
Christ is our peace, Eph. ii. 14.
Christ hath pacified the Father of heaven for us, Rom. v. 1.
Christ is ours and all his, 1 Cor. iii. 23.
Christ hath delivered us from the law, from the devil, and from hell, Col. ii. 14-17.
The Father of heaven hath forgiven us our sins, for Christ's sake, 1 John i. 9.
(Or any such other, like to the same, which declare unto us the mercy of God.)