p. 3 | A Timely Visitant by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 2, 1909

A Timely Visitant

By W. A. S.

DISCUSSING the ministry of angels, in his commentary on the book of Daniel, Melanchthon, the associate of Luther, tells of the providential deliverance of Simon Grinæus, of the University of Heidelberg. Grinæus had come to the Diet of Spires, in the year 1529. This was the year in which the famous protest of the Protestant princes was presented.

The clerical champion of the Catholic side at the council was Faber, bishop of Vienna, who violently opposed the reformed teaching. Grinæus one day remonstrated privately with Faber concerning positions he had taken. Faber, on learning the name of his visitor, who was famous as a scholar and reformer, pretended he desired to confer with him more at leisure, and invited him to come to his lodging next day. Grinæus gladly promised to do so. Melanchthon says:—

When he had departed from Faber, he came straightway unto us, and was scarcely set at the table (for it was supper time), reciting a part of his talk with Faber unto me and others there present, when I, sitting with my company, was suddenly called out of the parlor by a certain ancient fatherly man, who, showing a singular gravity in his countenance, words, and behavior, spake unto me, and said that the sergeants would by and by come unto our lodging, being sent by the king's commandment, to carry Grinæus to prison, whom Faber had accused to the king; commanding that Grinæus should straightway depart out of the town; and exhorted me that we should in no case delay the time.

And so, bidding me farewell, he departed. But what old man this was, neither did I know him, nor afterward could I understand. I, returning again unto my company, bade them rise, and told them what the old man had said unto me.

By and by, we, taking Grinæus in the midst of us, carried him through the street to the river Rhine, where after we had staid upon the hither bank awhile, until Grinæus, with his companion, was carried over in a small boat, returning again to our lodging, we understood that the sergeant had been there, when we were but a little way gone out of the house.

Now in what great danger Grinæus should have been, if he had been carried to prison by this cruelty of Faber, every man may easily conjecture; wherefore we judged that this most cruel intent and purpose of him, was disappointed by God's merciful providence. And as I can not say what old man it was that gave me this warning, even so likewise the sergeants made such quick speed, that except Grinæus had been covered and defended by the angels, through the marvelous providence of God, he could never have escaped.

Concerning the truth of this matter, there be many good men yet alive, which know both the same, and also were present at the doing thereof. Therefore let us give thanks unto God, which hath given us his angels to be our keepers and defenders.

The calm scholar and theologian of the German Reformation, Melanchthon, was not the man to be misled by fancy; and all the setting of the case convinced him, beyond a doubt, that an angel of the Lord had brought the warning and pointed the way of escape. “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?”

Surely angels were in Spires, as the forces of earthly powers gathered there in a great crisis in the history of the work of God. As the angels ministered to patriarchs and prophets and believers in olden time, so have they shielded reformers, led the way before missionaries, and are still with the Lord's children for the finishing of the work, whether seen or unseen. Thank God for the blessed truth of the ministry of angels!

W. A. S.