March 23 George Friedrich Handel known for his - Handel's oratorio "Messiah". George Friedrich Handel's oratorio "Messiah" was first played in London on March 23, 1743. It was attended by King George II. The King who was so moved by the “Hallelujah” chorus that he rose to his feet and then everyone in attendance followed suit as not to be sitting when the King stood. A tradition ever since is observed whenever the "Hallelujah" chorus is played. After he wrote the "Hallelujah" chorus, Handel was quoted as saying, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself." George Frideric Handel was born on 23 February 1685 (the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti) in Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg - Germany. His parents were Georg Händel and Dorothea Taust. His father was an eminent barber surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The Thirty Years' War brought extensive destruction to Halle, and by the 1680s it was impoverished. From an early age, Handel longed to study music, but his father objected, doubting that music would be a realistic source of income. Infact, his father would not even permit him to own a musical instrument. George studied law until 1703, even though his father (who finally allowed his son to take music lessons at age 9) died when he was 11. His mother, however, was supportive, and she encouraged him to develop his musical talent. With her cooperation, Handel took to practicing on the sly. Handel attended the Gymnasium in Halle, where the headmaster, Johann Praetorius, was reputed to be an ardent musician. When Handel was still a young boy, he had the opportunity to play the organ for the duke’s court in Weissenfels. It was there that Handel met composer and organist Frideric Wilhelm Zachow. Zachow was impressed with Handel’s potential and invited Handel to become his pupil. Under Zachow's tutelage, Handel mastered composing for the organ, the oboe and the violin alike by the time he was 10 years old. By age 12, Handel was substituting for his organ teacher and had written his first composition. From the age of 11 to the time he was 16 or 17, Handel composed church cantatas and chamber music that, being written for a small audience, failed to garner much attention and have since been lost to time. In 1703, when Handel was 18 years old, he decided to commit himself completely to music, accepting a violinist’s position at the Hamburg Opera’s Goose Market Theater. During this time, he supplemented his income by teaching private music lessons in his free time, passing on what he had learned from Zachow. After musical studies in Germany and Italy, Handel worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy. Handel moved to England in 1712 and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He stayed for the rest of his life in London and became a composer for the Chapel Royal. By the 1730s, British audiences had grown tired of operas sung in German or Italian and preferred comedic performances in English. This was good for Handel, who struggled to keep his creditors away, and led him to push himself to the limit by composing four operas within the same year. As a result, Handel suffered a stroke in the spring of 1737 that paralyzed his right arm. The doctor who treated him said, “We may save the man—but the musician is lost forever. It seems to me that his brain has been permanently injured.” His fans worried that he would never compose again. But Handel refused to give up. After only six weeks of recuperation in Aix-la-Chapelle, Handel was fully recovered. He surprised everyone when he miraculously recovered his strength and declared, “I have come back from Hades.” He went back to London and not only returned to composing, but made a comeback at playing the organ as well. In 1741, swimming in debt and out of favor as a composer, Handel received a libretto from Charles Jennens, a poet and a scholar of Handel’s day with whom he had worked previously. The words to the piece are a distillation of Christian doctrine, using scripture references, the libretto detailed the life of Jesus Christ from His birth and ministry to His crucifixion and resurrection. Jennens wrote to counteract all of the secular thinking of the day and teach those who preferred concert halls to church pews the rudiments of the Christian message. He drew his text from the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. For Jennens and Handel, "Messiah" would be an evangelistic tool to share the gospel with the masses. Handel lived at his rented house # 25 Brook Street, in the Mayfair district of London. On August 22, 56-year-old Handel sequestered himself in his London home and began to compose music to the biblical texts heralding the life of Jesus Christ. For more than a week, his servant faithfully waited on his employer Handel, and served appealing meals to the composer, and returned later to find the bowls and platters largely untouched. The servant knew his master Handel as an eccentric composer, who spent hour after hour isolated in his own room. One day the servant opened the door of the composer’s room and was startled to see tears streaming down his master Handle's face. The great composer turned to his servant and cried out, ‘I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself.’ In just 24 days the great composer Handel completed a 260-page oratorio. He titled the massive work "Messiah". Handel wrote the Messiah for the Easter holiday but the music got quickly pegged for Christmas performances. The Handel's Messiah oratorio tells three stories: the first part prophesied the birth of Jesus Christ; the second exalted his sacrifice for humankind; and the final section heralded his Resurrection. The first part is sung at Christmas and the second and final at Easter, with the Hallelujah Chorus being sung both times. Handel told the sponsors of the premier performance of Messiah in Dublin, Ireland, on April 13, 1742, that the proceeds from the performance should be donated to prisoners, orphans and the sick. “I have myself been a very sick man, and am now cured,” he said. “I was prisoner and have been set free.” Six years later that is in 1743, Handel suffered a second springtime stroke. However, he stunned audiences once again with a speedy recovery, followed by a prolific stream of ambitious oratorios. Handel’s three-act oratorio Samson, which premiered in London in 1743, reflected how Handel related to the character’s blindness through his own firsthand experience with the progressive degeneration of his sight: Total eclipse! no sun, no moon. All dark amidst the blaze of noon. Oh glorious light! no cheering ray To glad my eyes with welcome day. By 1750, Handel had entirely lost sight in his left eye. He forged on, however, composing the oratorio Jephtha, which also contained a reference to obscured vision. In 1752 Handel lost sight in his other eye and was rendered completely blind. As always before, Handel’s passionate pursuit of music propelled him forward. He kept on performing and composing, relying on his sharp memory to compensate when necessary, and remained actively involved in productions of his work until his dying day. Over the course of his musical career, Handel, exhausted by stress, endured a number of potentially debilitating problems with his physical health. He is also believed to have suffered from anxiety and depression. Yet somehow, Handel, who was known to laugh in the face of adversity, remained virtually undeterred in his determination to keep making music. On April 14, 1759, at the age of 74, Handel died on the day before Easter 1759, hoping to "meet his good God, his sweet Lord and Savior, on the day of his Resurrection. Handel was buried in Westminster Abbey a week after he died. Around 3000 people attended his funeral service. "A close friend remarked, "He died as he lived—a good Christian, with a true sense of his duty to God and to man, and in perfect charity with all the world." Handel was known for being a generous man, even in death. Having never married or fathered children, his will divided his assets among his servants and several charities, including the Foundling Hospital. He even donated the money to pay for his own funeral so that none of his loved ones would bear the financial burden. His music was admired by Classical-era composers, especially Mozart and Beethoven. Handel composed more than forty opera serias over a period of more than thirty years. The musicologist Winton Dean wrote that "Handel was not only a great composer; he was a dramatic genius of the first order." The works that associate Handel most closely with Westminster Abbey are the four anthems written for the coronation of George II in 1727. The best known, 'Zadok the Priest', has been used at every coronation since then, but all four continue to be regularly performed and recorded. A number of hymnal editors, including Lowell Mason, took themes from some of Handel's oratorios and turned them into hymn tunes; ANTIOCH is one example, long associated with “Joy to the World.” George Frideric Handel's Messiah was originally an Easter offering. It burst onto the stage of Musick Hall in Dublin on April 13, 1742. The men and women in attendance sat mesmerized from the moment the tenor followed the mournful string overture with his piercing opening line: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God." Soloists alternated with wave upon wave of chorus, until, near the midway point, Cibber intoned: "He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." So moved was the Rev. Patrick Delany that he leapt to his feet and cried out: "Woman, for this be all thy sins forgiven thee!" In most of Handel's oratorios, the soloists dominate and the choir sings only brief choruses. But in Messiah, says Laurence Cummings, director of the London Handel Orchestra, "the chorus propels the work forward with great emotional impact and uplifting messages." Some 40 years after Messiah’s premiere, English musicologist Charles Burney wrote, “This great work has been heard in all parts of the kingdom with increasing reverence and delight; it has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, fostered the orphan and enriched succeeding managers of the oratorios, more than any single production in this or any other country.” Handel placed a note on his original manuscript that read “To God alone the glory,” "He [Handel] would frequently declare the pleasure he felt in setting the Scriptures to music, and how contemplating the many sublime passages in the Psalms had contributed to his edification." —Sir John Hawkins Ludwig van Beethoven considered Handel was the greatest of all his predecessors; he said, "I would bare my head and kneel at his grave". Citing Messiah, Beethoven said Handel was the "greatest composer that ever lived." Handle's Hallelujah chorus is one of the best and all time played and sung across the churches. "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, and of His Christ; And He shall reign for ever and ever, King of kings, and Lord of lords. King of kings, and Lord of lords. King of kings, and Lord of lords, and Lord of lords, and He shall reign, and He shall reign for ever and ever, for ever and ever, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! And He shall reign for ever and ever, for ever and ever. King of kings! and Lord of lords! King of kings! and Lord of lords! And He shall reign for ever and ever, King of kings! and Lord of lords! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-glorious-history-of-handels-messiah-148168540/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.biography.com/.amp/musician/george-handel https://philharmonia.org/learn-and-listen/baroque-composers/george-frideric-handel/ https://hymnary.org/person/Handel_GF https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/george-frederic-handel https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/musiciansartistsandwriters/george-frideric-handel.html https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/musiciansartistsandwriters/george-frideric-handel.html http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Handel%2C%20George%20Frideric%2C%201685%2D1759 https://youtu.be/IUZEtVbJT5c

March 22 Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Edwards was the most notable American philosopher, naturalist, theologian and preacher of his century. The great Missionary David Brainerd was his brother in law. Edwards died from smallpox vaccination shortly after arriving in New Jersey to accept the presidency of Princeton University on March 22, 1758 at the age of 55. Jonathan Edwards was born about 70 years after the Puritans had first colonized what became New England. He was born on October 5, 1703, the only son of Timothy Edwards (1668–1759), a minister at Connecticut, who eked out his salary by tutoring boys for college. His mother, Esther Stoddard, daughter of Rev. Solomon Stoddard of Northampton, Massachusetts, was a woman of unusual gifts and independence of character. Edwards was raised, along with ten sisters (each of whom was at least six feet tall). Jonathan Edwards was interested in natural history, and as a precocious 11-year-old, had observed and written an essay detailing the ballooning behavior of some spiders. Edwards edited this text later to match the burgeoning genre of scientific literature, and his "The Flying Spider" fit easily into the contemporary scholarship on spiders. Jonathan was trained for college by his father and elder sisters, all of whom received an excellent education. In a brief letter he wrote in 1716 at age twelve—he describes recent events in the church of Timothy Edwards, his father: "Through the wonderful mercy and goodness of God there hath in this place been a very remarkable stirring and pouring out of the Spirit of God". He entered Yale College in 1716 at just under the age of 13. In the following year, he became acquainted with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which influenced him profoundly. He read John Locke with more delight "than the most greedy miser finds when gathering up handfuls of silver and gold, from some newly discovered treasure." He also was a young man with profound spiritual sensitivities. At age 17, after a period of distress, he said holiness was revealed to him as a ravishing, divine beauty. His heart panted "to lie low before God, as in the dust; that I might be nothing, and that God might be all, that I might become as a little child.". During his college studies, he kept notebooks labeled "The Mind," "Natural Science" (containing a discussion of the atomic theory), "The Scriptures" and "Miscellanies," had a grand plan for a work on natural and mental philosophy, and drew up rules for its composition. In the year 1720 he had completed his BA degree. In 1721, when he was 17 years old and was pursuing his Master's Degree came the great turning point in his life. Edwards struggled with the Calvinistic understanding of the sovereignty of God. He once wrote: "From my childhood up my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God's sovereignty. . . It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me." But in the spring of 1721 he came to a “delightful conviction” as he was meditating on 1 Timothy 1:17. He remarked:As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from anything I ever experienced before. . . I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to him in heaven; and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever! I kept saying, and as it were singing over these words of scripture to myself; and went to prayer, to pray to God that I might enjoy him; and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do; with a new sort of affection. From that point on, Edwards delighted in the sovereignty of God, he says: “I was brought to a new sense of things, to an inward sweet delight in God and divine things, quite different from anything I had ever experienced before. I began to have a new kind of apprehension and idea of Christ and the work of redemption and the glorious way of salvation by him.” He received Master of Arts degree from Yale in 1722. Although he studied theology for two years after his graduation from Yale, Edwards continued to be interested in science. Edwards was fascinated by the discoveries of Isaac Newton and other scientists of this time period. Before he was called to full-time ministry work in Northampton, he wrote on various topics in natural philosophy, including flying spiders, light, and optics. Although many European scientists and American clergymen found the implications of science pushing them towards deism, Edwards went the other way. He believed the natural world was evidence of God's masterful design. While he worried about those of his contemporaries who seemed preoccupied by materialism and faith in reason alone, he considered the laws of nature to be derived from God and demonstrating his wisdom and care. Throughout his life, Edwards often went into the woods as a favorite place to pray and worship in the beauty and solace of nature. Edwards's written sermons and theological treatises emphasize the beauty of God and the role of aesthetics in the spiritual life. He is thought to anticipate a 20th-century current of theological aesthetics, represented by figures such as Hans Urs von Balthasar. He took a great and new joy in taking in the beauties of nature and delighted in the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Solomon. This combination of intellect and piety characterized Edward's whole life. In 1722 to 1723, he was for eight months an un-ordained "supply" pastor of a small Presbyterian church on William Street in New York City. The church invited him to remain, but he declined the call. After spending two months in study at home, in 1724–1726, he was one of the two tutors at Yale tasked with leading the college in the absence of a rector. He partially recorded these years in his diary. Between August 1722 and August 1723, as a young man and pastor at the age of 18 Jonathan Edwards set down on paper a series of thoughts and practices to help cultivate his growth in grace. (2 Peter 3.18). These thoughts are 70 resolutions he wrote for his conduct with an eagerness to live earnestly and soberly, to waste no time, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking. Edwards re-read this list at least once a week to keep his mind focused and renewed. The result was that he became a man of humble godliness, who was to become a significant spark used to ignite one of the greatest revivals known to history. The Seventy Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards are still a practical and beneficial tool for spiritual cultivation. Before Edwards got to number one, however, he offered a prefatory word: "Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will for Christ’s sake". Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will. Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life. 1. Resolved: I will DO whatever I think will be most to God’s glory; and my own good, profit and pleasure, for as long as I live. I will do all these things without any consideration of the time they take. Resolved: to do whatever I understand to be my duty and will provide the most good and benefit to mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I encounter, and no matter how many I experience or how severe they may be. 2. Resolved: I will continually endeavor to find new ways to practice and promote the things from Resolution 1. 3. Resolved: If ever – really, whenever – I fail & fall and/or grow weary & dull; whenever I begin to neglect the keeping of any part of these Resolutions; I will repent of everything I can remember that I have violated or neglected, …as soon as I come to my senses again. 4. Resolved: Never to do anything, whether physically or spiritually, except what glorifies God. In fact, I resolve not only to this commitment, but I resolve not to even grieve and gripe about these things, …if I can avoid it. 5. Resolved: Never lose one moment of time; but seize the time to use it in the most profitable way I possibly can. 6. Resolved: To live with all my might, …while I do live. 7. Resolved: Never to do anything which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life. 8. Resolved: To act, in all respects, both in speaking and doing, as if nobody had ever been as sinful as I am; and when I encounter sin in others, I will feel (at least in my own mind& heart) as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same weaknesses or failings as others. I will use the knowledge of their failings to promote nothing but humility – even shame – in myself. I will use awareness of their sinfulness and weakness only as an occasion to confess my own sins and misery to God. 9. Resolved: To think much, on all occasions, about my own dying, and of the common things which are involved with and surround death. 10. Resolved: When I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom – both of Jesus and of Believers around the world; and remind myself of the reality of hell. 11. Resolved: When I think of any theological question to be resolved, I will immediately do whatever I can to solve it, … if circumstances don’t hinder. 12. Resolved: If I find myself taking delight in any gratification of pride or vanity, or on any other such empty virtue, I will immediately discard this gratification. 13. Resolved: To be endeavoring to discover worthy objects of charity and liberality. 14. Resolved: Never to do anything out of revenge. 15. Resolved: Never to suffer the least emotions of anger about irrational beings. 16. Resolved: Never to speak evil of anyone, except if it is necessary for some real good. 17. Resolved: I will live in such a way, as I will wish I had done when I come to die. 18. Resolved: To live, at all times, in those ways I think are best in me during my most spiritual moments and seasons – those times when I have clearest understanding of the gospel and awareness of the World that is to come. 19. Resolved: Never to do anything, which I would be afraid to do if I expected it would not be more than an hour before I would hear the last trump sound. (i.e. when Jesus returns.) 20. Resolved: To maintain the wisest and healthiest practices in my eating and drinking. 21. Resolved: Never to do anything, which if I saw another do, I would consider a just reason to despise him for, or to think in any way lesser of him. 22. Resolved: To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the world to come as I possibly can. To accomplish this I will use all the strength, power, vigor, and vehemence – even violence – I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of. 23. Resolved: Frequently take some deliberate action – something out of the ordinary – and do it for the glory of God. Then I will trace my intention back and try to discern my real and deepest motive: What did I really desire out of it? If I find that my truest motive was not for God’s glory, then I consider it as a breach of the 4th Resolution. (See Above) 24. Resolved: Whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, I will trace it back till I come to the original cause; and then I will carefully endeavor BOTH 1) to do so no more AND 2) to fight and pray with all my might against the source of the original impulse. 25. Resolved: To examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is that causes me to doubt of the love of God, even the least little bit; and then to direct all my forces against it. 26. Resolved: To oust away anything I find that diminishes my assurance of God’s love and grace. 27. Resolved: Never intentionally omit or neglect anything, except if such an omission would be for the glory of God. NOTE to Self: frequently examine anything I have omitted. 28. Resolved: To study the Scriptures so steadily, and so constantly, and so frequently, that it becomes evident – even obvious – to myself that my knowledge of them has grown. 29. Resolved: Never consider something a prayer, nor to let pass for a prayer, any petition that when making I cannot actually hope that God will answer; nor offer as a confession anything which I cannot hope God will accept. 30. Resolved: To strive to my utmost every week to be brought to a higher spiritual place, and to a greater experience of grace, than I was the week before. 31. Resolved: Never to say anything at all against anybody; except when to do so is perfectly consistent with the highest standards of Christian honor and love to mankind; and except when it is consistent with the sense of greatest humility and awareness of my own faults and failings. Then, whenever I have said anything against anyone, I will examine my words against the strictest test of the Golden Rule. 32. Resolved: To be strictly and firmly faithful to whatever God entrusts to me. My hope is that the saying in Proverbs 20.6, “A faithful man who can find?” may not be found to be even partly true of me. 33. Resolved: Always do whatever I can towards making, maintaining, establishing and preserving peace, whenever it can be, but without over-balancing the value peace to such a degree that it becomes a detriment in other respects. 34. Resolved: When telling stories, never to speak anything but the pure and simple truth. 35. Resolved: Whenever I so much as question whether I have done my duty, to a point that my peace and tranquility is disturbed, I will stop and question myself until my concern is resolved. 36. Resolved: Never to speak evil of anyone, except I have some particular good purpose for doing so. 37. Resolved: To inquire every night, as I am going to bed, where I may have been negligent, what sin I have committed, and how I have denied myself. I will also do this at the end of every week, month, and year. 38. Resolved: Never to speak anything that is ridiculous, trivial, or otherwise inappropriate on the Lord’s Day or Sabbath evening. 39. Resolved: Never to do anything when the lawfulness is questionable. And then afterward, resolve to consider and examine whether or not whatever I have just done is truly lawful and/or whether whatever I have refrained from doing would have actually been permissible. 40. Resolved: To inquire every night, before I go to bed, whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could, with respect to eating and drinking. 41. Resolved: To ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, where I could have possibly done better in any respect. 42. Resolved: To frequently renew my dedication to God, which was first made at my baptism and which I solemnly renewed when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have now solemnly re-made this [DATE] day of [MONTH], [YEAR]. 43. Resolved: Never, from this day until the day I die, act as if I were in any way my own, but entirely and altogether belong to God, and then live in a way agreeable to this reality. 44. Resolved: That nothing other than the gospel shall have any influence at all on any of my actions; and that no action shall be, even in the very least circumstance, anything other than gospel declares, demands, and implies. 45. Resolved: Never to allow any pleasure or grief, joy or sorrow, nor any affection at all, nor any degree of affection, nor any circumstance, but what advances the gospel. 46. Resolved: Never allow the least measure of any fretting or uneasiness about my father or mother. Resolved to never allow the effects of disappointment in them, or frustrations with them, to even in the very least alter what I say to them or about them, or any activity in reaction to them. Let me be careful about this, not only about my parents, but also with respect to any of our family. 47. Resolved: To endeavor to my utmost to deny whatever is not most agreeable to a good, and universally sweet and benevolent, quiet, peace able, contented, easy, compassionate, generous, humble, meek, modest, submissive, obliging, diligent and industrious, charitable, even, patient, moderate, forgiving, sincere temper; and to do at all times what such a temper would lead me to. Examine strictly every week, whether I have done so. Sabbath morning. May 5,1723. 48. Resolved: With the utmost niceness and diligence, and with the strictest scrutiny, constantly be looking into the state condition of my soul, so that I may know whether or not I have truly an interest in Christ at any given time. I will do this so that, when I come to my end in death, I will not have neglected to repent of anything I have found. 49. Resolved: That Neglect never shall be, if I can help it. 50. Resolved: I will act in such a way as I think I will judge to have been best and most prudent, when I have come into the future world – Heaven. 51. Resolved: That I will act in every respect, as I think I would wish I had done, if in the end for some reason I would have be damned. 52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again, so… Resolved: That I will live just as I can imagine I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age. 53. Resolved: To improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my eternal safety, knowing that my confidence is in my Redeemer. 54. Resolved: Whenever I hear anything spoken in a conversation of any person, if I think what is said of that person would be praiseworthy in me, I will endeavor to imitate it. 55. Resolved: To endeavor to my utmost to act as I can imagine I would if I had already seen all the happiness of heaven, as well as the torments of hell. 56. Resolved: Never to give up, nor even slacken up, in my fight with my own corruptions, no matter how successful or unsuccessful I may be. 57. Resolved: When I fear misfortunes and adversities, to examine whether I have done all I am expected to do, and resolve to do everything I am able to do. Once I have done all that God requires of me, I will accept whatever comes my way, and accept that it is just as God’s Providence has ordered it. I will, as far as I can, be concerned about nothing but my own duty and my own sin. 58. Resolved: Not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversations, but also to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness and graciousness. 59. Resolved: Whenever I am most conscious of feelings of ill nature, bad attitude, and/or anger, I will strive then the most to feel and act good naturedly. At such times I know I may feel that to exhibit good nature might seem in some respects to be to my own immediate disadvantage, but I will nevertheless act in a way that is gracious, realizing that to do otherwise would be imprudent at other times (i.e. times when I am not feeling so irked). 60. Resolved: Whenever my feelings begin to appear in the least out of sorts, when I am conscious of the least uneasiness within my own heart and/or soul, or the least irregularity in my behavior, I will immediately subject myself to the strictest examination. (i.e. Psalm 42.11) 61. Resolved: I will not give way to that apathy and listlessness which I find artificially eases and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on God’s Grace. Whatever excuses I may have for it, whatever my listlessness inclines me to do, or rather whatever it inclines me to neglect doing, I will realize that it would actually be best for me to do these things. 62. Resolved: Never to do anything but what God, by the Law of Love, requires me to do. And then, according to Ephesians 6.6-8, I must do it willingly and cheerfully as to the Lord, and not for man. I must remember that whatever good thing any man has or does he has first received from God; and that whenever a man is compelled by faith to act with love and charity toward others, especially those in need, that we do it as if to/for the Lord. 63. On the hypothetical supposition that at any one time there was never to be but ONE individual in the world who was a genuine and complete Christian, who in all respects always demonstrated the Faith shining in its truest luster, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever angle and under whatever circumstance this Faith is viewed… Resolved: To act just as I would do, if I strove with all my strength, to be that ONE; and to live as if that ONE should live in my time and place. 64. Resolved: Whenever I experience those “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8.26), of which the Apostle speaks, and those “longings” that consume our souls, of which the Psalmist speaks (Psalm 119:20), I will embrace them with everything I have within me. And I will not be weary of earnestly endeavoring to express my desires, nor of the repetitions so often necessary to express them and benefit from them. 65. Resolved: To exercise myself in all my life long, with the greatest openness I am capable of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires; and every thing in every circumstance. (See Dr. Manton‘s 27th Sermon on Psalm 119.) 66. Resolved: I will endeavor always to keep a gracious demeanor, and air of acting and speaking in all places and in all companies, except if it should so happen that faithfulness requires otherwise. 67. Resolved: After afflictions, to inquire in what ways I am now the better for having experienced them. What good have I received by them? What benefits and insights do I now have because of them? 68. Resolved: To confess honestly to myself all that I find in myself – whether weakness or sin. And if it something that concerns my spiritual health, I will also confess the whole case to God, and implore him for all needed help. 69. Resolved: Always to do that which I will wish I had done whenever I see others do it. 70. Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak. On February 15, 1727, Edwards was ordained minister at Northampton and assistant to his grandfather Solomon Stoddard, a noted minister. He was a scholar-pastor, not a visiting pastor, his rule being 13 hours of study a day. On July 28, 1727 at the age of 24 Jonathan Edwards married 17 year Sarah Pierpont. Sarah was from a notable New England clerical family: her father was James Pierpont (1659–1714), the head founder of Yale College; and her mother was the great-granddaughter of Thomas Hooker. Sarah's spiritual devotion was without peer, and her relationship with God had long proved an inspiration to Edwards. He first remarked on her great piety when she was 13 years old. Edwards described their marriage as an "uncommon union," and in a sermon on Genesis 2:21–25, he said, "When Adam rose from his deep sleep, God brought woman to him from near his heart." Sarah was of a bright and cheerful disposition, a practical housekeeper, a model wife, and the mother of 11 children, who included Esther Edwards. Solomon Stoddard died on February 11, 1729, leaving to his grandson the difficult task of the sole ministerial charge of one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the colony. Its members were proud of its morality, its culture and its reputation. Edwards, in common with all Puritans of his day, held to complementarian views of marriage and gender roles. Summing up Edwards' influences during his younger years, scholar John E. Smith writes, "By thus meditating between Berkeley on the one hand and Locke, Descartes, and Hobbes on the other, the young Edwards hoped to rescue Christianity from the deadweight of rationalism and the paralyzing inertia of skepticism." On July 8, 1731, Edwards preached in Boston the "Public Lecture" afterwards published under the title "God Glorified in the Work of Redemption, by the Greatness of Man's Dependence upon Him, in the Whole of It," which was his first public attack on Arminianism. The emphasis of the lecture was on God's absolute sovereignty in the work of salvation: that while it behooved God to create man pure and without sin, it was of his "good pleasure" and "mere and arbitrary grace" for him to grant any person the faith necessary to incline him or her toward holiness, and that God might deny this grace without any disparagement to any of his character. In 1733, a Protestant revival began in Northampton and reached such an intensity in the winter of 1734 and the following spring, that it threatened the business of the town. In six months, nearly 300 of 1100 youths were admitted to the church. The revival gave Edwards an opportunity to study the process of conversion in all its phases and varieties, and he recorded his observations with psychological minuteness and discrimination in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton (1737). A year later, he published Discourses on Various Important Subjects, the five sermons which had proved most effective in the revival. Of these, none was so immediately effective as that on the Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners, from the text, "That every mouth may be stopped." Another sermon, published in 1734, A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, set forth what he regarded as the inner, moving principle of the revival, the doctrine of a special grace in the immediate, and supernatural divine illumination of the soul. By 1735, the revival had spread and popped up independently across the Connecticut River Valley, and perhaps as far as New Jersey. After the revival of 1734-35 events returned more to normal in Northampton. This went on with ups and downs until 1740. Edwards wrote "Revivals don’t last, they are special seasons of mercy". In 1740 one historian says, “Like a sudden bolt out of a clear, blue sky there came the Great Awakening. Concern, spiritual hunger, not simply in Northampton. It didn't begin in Northampton, but it spread from different points down the eastern seaboard. It was said in Boston that such was the consciousness of God and the fear of God that you could have left bars of gold on the pavement and no one would have moved them. The word of the Northampton revival and Edwards's leadership role had spread as far as England and Scotland. It was at this time that Edwards became acquainted with George Whitefield, who was traveling the Thirteen Colonies on a revival tour in 1739–40. The two men may not have seen eye to eye on every detail. Whitefield was far more comfortable with the strongly emotional elements of revival than Edwards was, but they were both passionate about preaching the Gospel. They worked together to orchestrate Whitefield's trip, first through Boston and then to Northampton. When Whitefield preached at Edwards's church in Northampton, he reminded them of the revival they had undergone just a few years before. This deeply touched Edwards, who wept throughout the entire service, and much of the congregation too was moved. Revival began to spring up again, and Edwards preached his most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, in Enfield, Connecticut in 1741 on July 8, 1741. This was the most famous sermon in American history. Edwards preached from this short text: “. . .their foot shall slide in due time:” -Deuteronomy 32:35. In perhaps the most memorable passage, of his exposition Edwards wrote: “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. . . You are 10,000 times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.” As a preacher of biblical revival, Edwards knew that men would not be saved if they knew nothing of God’s impending, holy, just wrath. While many people today believe the Church should shy away from these truths, Edwards loved sinners enough to warn them of their plight. What has been lost in most discussions of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” however, is Edwards’ vehement gospel call near the end of the sermon: "And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners." The response of the congregation was nothing short of amazing. Before Edwards could finish, people were crying out, "What shall I do to be saved?" Far more than a depiction of hell, it is a call to personal salvation through Jesus and spiritual revival in our time. Though this sermon has been widely reprinted as an example of "fire and brimstone" preaching in the colonial revivals, that characterization is not in keeping with descriptions of Edward's actual preaching style. Two of his most important books came out of that time, The Distinguishing Marks of the Work of the Spirit of God and his Thoughts on the Revival on New England. He said: “God is pleased sometimes in dealing full spiritual blessings to his people, in some respects, to exceed the capacity of the vessel in its present scantiness, so that he not only fills it, but he makes that cup run over. It has been with the disciples of Christ for a long season a time of great emptiness on spiritual accounts. They have gone hungry and have been toiling in vain during a dark night of the Church as a philosopher, the disciples of old (Luke 5). But now, the morning having come Jesus appears to his disciples and gives them such an abundance of food that they are not able to draw their net, yea, so that their nets break and the vessel is overloaded.” That is his picture of the Great Awakening. They had been toiling, preaching faithfully. God in his mercy revived the Church and the nets broke and the vessels, the ships could hardly hold what came in. So it was a time of great blessing. Samuel Hopkins who heard him often said, “His words often discovered a great deal of inward fervor, without much noise or external emotion and fell with great weight on the minds of his hearers. He made little motion with head or hands, but spoke so as to discover the motion of his heart.” Thomas Murphy, writing in the 19th century, puts his finger exactly on the right point. He says, explaining the Great Awakening, “It wasn’t in terms of the personalities of the preachers, but as a wonderful baptism of the Holy Spirit.” “The Church,” he says, “was orthodox before. She is now imbued with a life and energy that was irresistible.” And speaking of Edwards and his colleagues, “They were men who believed in refreshings from on high. They felt some of them in their own souls and they were ready for still more.” While most 21st-century readers notice the damnation looming in such a sermon text, historian George Marsden reminds us that Edwards was not preaching anything new or surprising: "Edwards could take for granted... that a New England audience knew well the Gospel remedy. The problem was getting them to seek it." The Great Awakening lasted from 1740 to 1742. Edwards regarded personal conversion as critical, so he insisted that only persons who had made a profession of faith, which included a description of their conversion experience, could receive Communion. And in a day when psalm-singing was almost the only music to be heard in congregational churches, Edwards encouraged the singing of new Christian hymns, notably those of Isaac Watts. For the next few years, he was a missionary pastor to Native Americans in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and wrote, among other theological treatises, Freedom of the Will (1754), a brilliant defense of divine sovereignty. In it he argued that we are free to do whatever we want, but we will never want to do God's will without a vision of his divine nature imparted by the Spirit. Fascinated by Newtonian physics and enlightened by Scripture, Edwards believed that God's providence was literally the binding force of atoms—that the universe would collapse and disappear unless God sustained its existence from one moment to the next. Scripture affirmed his view that Christ is "upholding all things by his word of power" (Heb. 1:3 RSV). Such were the fruits of his lifelong habit of rising at 4:00 a.m. and studying 13 hours a day. Edwards’ dismissal from the church in Northampton was a troublesome time for the family. After lean months of unemployment, Edwards found an unlikely assignment. He and his family moved to the remote town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The quiet made possible the writing of Freedom of the Will. Each evening, Edwards would read to Sarah, “my dear companion,” the product of the day’s toil at his desk. Years went on. Children married. One daughter moved to New Jersey where her attractive and brilliant husband was organizing a new university at Princeton. Suddenly, in 1757, the young college president died. The trustees invited Edwards to succeed his son-in-law as president of Princeton. When the official invitation came, Edwards astonished everyone by bursting into tears, “which was very unusual for him in the presence of others.” Edwards went on to Princeton to be with his widowed daughter, while Sarah stayed behind in Stockbridge to finish the packing. A smallpox epidemic struck that spring of 1758. Vaccination was then a new and controversial intervention. Always ahead of his time, Edwards, characteristically, chose to take a chance on the vaccination. As he lay dying from complications that followed the risky procedure, he spoke in a low voice. The doctor and two daughters of the Edwards leaned down to hear the last words of Jonathan Edwards. He spoke of Sarah: "Give my kindest love to my dear wife, and tell her that the uncommon union which has so long subsisted between us has been of such a nature as I trust is spiritual and therefore will continue forever". Jonathan’s last words suggest the scripture passage that was Sarah’s favorite, Romans 8:35: “Who, then, can separate us from the love of Christ?” Shortly after arriving in New Jersey to accept the Presidency of Princeton University, Jonathan Edwards died at the age of 55 on March 22, 1758. His last words were, “Trust God and you need not fear.” Sarah Edwards wife of Jonathan Edwards wrote this letter to their daughter Esther ten days after the great 18th century minister and theologian died: "My very dear child, What shall I say? A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands upon our mouths! The Lord has done it. He has made me adore his goodness, that we had him so long. But my God lives; and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left us! We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be. Your affectionate mother, Sarah Edwards" A close friend remarked, “First of all, he was a Christian and a teacher of the Christian Faith. The reigning power of sin in his heart, on account of which he was ‘unable to love God, believe in Christ or do anything that is truly good and acceptable in God’s sight had been ended by the ‘interposition of sovereign grace." The legacy of Jonathan Edwards and his wife Sarah came from a godly heritage of great faith. Their eleven children have been a gift to American cultural history. In 1900 a reporter tracked down 1,400 descendants of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards. He found that they included: 300 Pastors, Missionaries, or Theological Professors, 2 Graduate School Deans, 120 College Professors, 110 Lawyers, 66 Physicians, 60 Authors, 30 Judges, 14 Presidents of Universities, Numerous Giants in American Industry, 80 Holders of Public Office, 3 U.S. Congressmen, 3 Governors of States, 1 Vice-President - Aaron Burr, the third United States Vice President. Members of this clan had written 135 published books, and the women were repeatedly described as “great readers” or “highly intelligent.” The report asserted: “The family has cost the country nothing in pauperism, in crime, in hospital or asylum service: on the contrary, it represents the highest usefulness.” As minister, theologian, and missionary, Edwards has exercised profound influence not only on the thought, culture, and literary life of his own time but on American society to the present. He is a window into a critical period in American history and was a shaper of spiritual life in America. When historians seek a person who represents the Puritan, intellectual strain in the American character, they turn almost universally to Edwards. He wrote, “He who would set the hearts of other men on fire with the love of Christ must himself burn with love.”

March 21 Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. - Reformation Martyr Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was burnt at the stake during the reign of Bloody Mary on 21st March 1556 at the age of 66. Thomas Cranmer edited "The Book of Common Prayer" which has had a tremendous influence on the English language and on liturgical worship for over 400 years. Thomas Cranmer was born on July 2, 1489, at Aslockton, Nottinghamshire, England, 131 miles northwest of London, to parents of modest wealth. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge and received his bachelor and master’s degrees from in logic, classical literature and philosophy. From there, he studied theology, earned ordination by 1520 and obtained a Doctor of Divinity degree by 1526. His wife Joan, died in childbirth; and he married his second wife Margarete and blessed with two children Margaret and Thomas. Around this same time, The King of England, Henry VIII, wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, who had failed to produce a male heir for the throne. Henry sent ambassadors to the Pope regarding the annulment, but the Pope failed to grant it. Soon after, Henry broke away from the Catholic Church and declared himself the head of the Church of England. Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, who had read the works of many Reformers, led to the appointment of Thomas Cranmer as the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church consecrated Cranmer as the archbishop on March 30, 1533. Henry’s motivations for separating from the Catholic Church were political, but Cranmer’s were more theological. Cranmer had met Reformers on the Continent and corresponded with them. As Cranmer became more convinced of Reformed theology, he organized work on a statement of faith that became the Thirty-Nine Articles, a document edited over 30 years that defined the theology of the Church of England in the 16th century. Cranmer also edited the Book of Common Prayer, which contained words for liturgical worship services (such as for baptisms, Communion, morning prayer, etc.), prayers for pastoral care, daily Bible readings, and later, the Thirty-Nine Articles. The Book of Common Prayer has had a tremendous influence on the English language and on liturgical worship for over 400 years. When Henry VIII died Edward VI became king in 1547 when he was just nine years old. Edward was raised Protestant, so the Church of England under Cranmer’s leadership flourished. When Edward died at age 15 in 1553, Henry VIII’s oldest child, Mary, became Queen, and she aggressively reinstated Roman Catholicism until her death in 1558. She accused the Archbishop Thomas Cranmer of heresy for his Protestant views. During the next few months he was subjected to continual pressure to abjure his theological opinions, and at length he was prevailed upon to sign a document acknowledging the Pope’s supreme authority. After two years in prison, and under great pressure from the authorities, and the promise of his former greatness if he would but recant, as well as the queen’s favor, even though they knew that his death was determined in council. To soften the path to apostasy, the first paper brought for his signature was conceived in general terms; this once signed, five others were obtained as explanatory of the first, until finally he put his hand to the following detestable instrument: I, Thomas Cranmer, late archbishop of Canterbury, do renounce, abhor, and detest all manner of heresies and errors of Luther and Zwingli, and all other teachings which are contrary to sound and true doctrine. And I believe most constantly in my heart, and with my mouth I confess one holy and Catholic Church visible, without which there is no salvation; and therefore I acknowledge the Bishop of Rome to be supreme head on earth, whom I acknowledge to be the highest bishop and pope, and Christ’s vicar, unto whom all Christian people ought to be subject. And as concerning the sacraments, I believe and worship in the sacrament of the altar the body and blood of Christ, being contained most truly under the forms of bread and wine; the bread, through the mighty power of God being turned into the body of our Savior Jesus Christ, and the wine into his blood. And in the other six sacraments, also, (alike as in this) I believe and hold as the universal Church holds, and the Church of Rome judges and determines. Furthermore, I believe that there is a place of purgatory, where souls departed be punished for a time, for whom the Church doth godly and wholesomely pray, like as it doth honor saints and make prayers to them. Finally, in all things I profess, that I do not otherwise believe than the Catholic Church and the Church of Rome holds and teaches. I am sorry that I ever held or thought otherwise. And I beseech Almighty God, that of His mercy He will vouchsafe to forgive me whatsoever I have offended against God or His Church, and also I desire and beseech all Christian people to pray for me. And all such as have been deceived either by mine example or doctrine, I require them by the blood of Jesus Christ that they will return to the unity of the Church, that we may be all of one mind, without schism or division.” The papists forced his full acceptance of the doctrines of purgatory and transubstantiation, and abjured all the beliefs he had formerly professed of a Lutheran or Zwinglian nature. His recantation was immediately printed and dispersed, only to discredit him in the public regard. However, the Queen refused any mercy saying Cranmer’s “iniquity and obstinacy was so great against God,” that “clemency and mercy could have no place with him." Imprisoned for almost three years, Cranmer awaited the verdict from Rome, since the trial was under the Pope’s jurisdiction. The Pope stripped Cranmer of his archbishopric and approved the death sentence. On March 21st he was brought once more to St. Mary’s Church where a platform had been set up for him in front of the pulpit. It was the day before Passion Sunday. A silent throng filled the nave and side aisles as the Provost of Eton climbed the pulpit steps to address them. He explained why Cranmer must die. Notwithstanding his acceptance of the full Romanist faith, and in spite of the fact that four Reforming bishops had already been burnt, Bishop Fisher was still insufficiently avenged. Only the death of the Archbishop could completely balance the account. The expectant congregation, the triumphant tribunal, waited for the solemn denunciation of his erstwhile Reforming opinions which must surely follow. What in fact came next electrified and confounded them. During the sermon Cranmer wept bitter tears: lifting up his hands and eyes to heaven, and letting them fall, as if unworthy to live: his grief now found vent in words: before his confession he fell upon his knees, and, in [prayer to God] unveiled the deep contrition and agitation which harrowed up his soul.... Then rising, he said he was desirous before his death to give them some pious exhortations by which God might be glorified and themselves edified. He then descanted upon the danger of a love for the world, the duty of obedience to their majesties, of love to one another and the necessity of the rich administering to the wants of the poor. He quoted the three verses of the fifth chapter of James, and then proceeded, Let them that be rich ponder well these three sentences: for if they ever had occasion to show their charity, they have it now at this present, the poor people being so many, and victual so dear. And now forasmuch as I am come to the last end of my life, whereupon hangs all my life past, and all my life to come, either to live with my master Christ for ever in joy, or else to be in pain for ever with the wicked in hell, and I see before mine eyes presently, either heaven ready to receive me, or else hell ready to swallow me up; I shall therefore declare unto you my very faith how I believe, without any color of dissimulation: for now is no time to dissemble, whatsoever I have said or written in times past. First, I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, etc. And I believe every article of the Catholic [i.e. worldwide] faith, every word and sentence taught by our Savior Jesus Christ, His apostles and prophets, in the New and Old Testament. And now I come to the great thing which so much troubles my conscience, “I renounce and refuse, as things written with my hand, contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death and to save my life, all bills and papers which I have written or signed with my own hand since my degradation. And forasmuch as my hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be punished therefore; for when I come to the fire it shall first be burned.” Cranmer regretted his decision and recanted his recant. And as for the pope, I refuse him as Christ’s enemy, and Antichrist, with all his false doctrine. Upon the conclusion of this unexpected declaration, amazement and indignation were conspicuous in every part of the church. The Catholics were completely foiled, their object being frustrated, Cranmer, like Samson, having completed a greater ruin upon his enemies in the hour of death, than he did in his life. He attempted to say more, to denounce the pretensions of the Pope, to re-assert his former denial of transubstantiation. But his outraged judges would allow him to speak no further. He was dragged from the platform and from St. Mary’s Church, to the spot near Balliol College where, only a few months before, he had seen Latimer and Ridley put to death. Here, before a vast concourse, he knelt in prayer and, after shaking hands with some of the bystanders, prepared himself for the stake. Then, in the words of an eye-witness, “when the wood was kindled and the fire began to burn, he put his right hand into the flame saying ‘ This hand hath offended.’” He was tied to the stake, the flaming faggots were piled around him, and “as soon as the fire got up he was very soon dead, never stirring or crying all the while.” The anonymous witness said Cranmer died with patience and courage. His eyes were lifted up to heaven, and he repeated “This unworthy right hand,” as long as his voice would suffer him; and using often the words of Stephen, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” in the greatness of the flame, he gave up his spirit. Thus Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake at Oxford on March 21, 1556. He was a man who changed the course of history in England forever. Thomas Cranmer was essentially a good man; irreproachable in his private life, devout and sincere in his religion, gentle and tolerant towards his fellow-men. He alone had interceded on behalf of Fisher, More and Cromwell, had pleaded for the monks of Sion, and had vainly opposed the rapacious Northumberland in his more outrageous plans of pillage and spoliation. And if at times he stretched his conscience almost to breaking-point in his desire to please and serve his King, it should ever be remembered to his credit that ultimately conscience triumphed over all. In theology he genuinely sought to return to a purer and more primitive faith, essentially orthodox yet purged of what he considered to be medieval accretions and abuses. He played no small part in laying the foundations of an Anglican theology and a doctrinal via media— foundations upon which Parker, Jewel, Hooker and the Caroline divines were afterwards able so notably to build. Of the seventy Collects in the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, Cranmer himself wrote about twenty-four, which are rightly described as 'remarkable pieces of devotion.' Here is the Collect to be prayed on the second Sunday in Advent. Blessed Lord, which hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; grant us that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that by patience, and comfort of thy holy word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. On the importance of the word of God he wrote: "Dost thou not mark and consider how the smith, mason, or carpenter or any other handy-craftsman, what need soever he be in ... he will not sell nor lay to pledge the tools of his occupation ... for then how should he get a living thereby? Of like mind and affection ought we to be towards holy scripture. For as mallets, hammers, saws, chisels, axes and hatchets be the tools of their occupation, so be the books of the prophets and apostles, and all holy writ inspired by the Holy Ghost the instrument of our salvation" This explains Cranmer's efforts for much of his time as Archbishop of Canterbury to get the English Bible into the hands of the common person in England. As J. I. Packer rightly points out in this regard: 'To make the Church of England a Bible-reading, Bible-loving church was Cranmer's constant ideal.' The declaration that Christ's death is 'a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction' for sin undercuts the entire theological edifice of medieval Roman Catholicism. He wrote "Almighty God our heavenly Father, which of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ, to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption, who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world, and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death, until his coming again; hear us O merciful Father we beseech thee..." Yet it was not in the field of dogmatics that Cranmer achieved his supreme distinction. His priceless legacy to posterity is the Book of Common Prayer. It has justifiably been said that as a compiler of prayers in our flexible English tongue Cranmer stands in a class by himself, as surely as Shakespeare stands alone as a poet. Many have achieved a lasting fame on less worthy and enduring merits. 'Few men,' Kenneth Brownell writes, 'did more to shape English Protestant spirituality and to drive into the soul of a nation the fundamentals of Protestant Christianity.' Within two years of Thomas Cranmer's martyrdom, Elizabeth I ascended the English throne and moved the church back in a Protestant direction, revising Cranmer's 42 Articles to 39, and adopting his Book of Common Prayer as the guide to worship. Today Anglicanism is the expression of faith for 51 million worldwide. 500 years ago Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was martyred for his Book of Common Prayer, after witnessing everything he had done in England be undone. He likely died believing he was a failure. Today, the entire world witnessed an event containing liturgy directly based on his words, from a prayerbook tradition he created. God is good. Soli Deo Gloria Coram Deo https://www.historytoday.com/archive/thomas-cranmer-1489-1556-archbishop-canterbury https://www.olivetree.com/blog/bio-thomas-cranmer/ https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/martyrs/thomas-cranmer.html https://www.worldhistory.org/Thomas_Cranmer/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cranmer https://www.christianstudylibrary.org/article/setter-forth-christ%E2%80%99s-glory%E2%80%99-remembering-life-and-martyrdom-thomas-cranmer https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/cranmer