p. 14 | A LESSON FOR THE CHURCH TO-DAY

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CAL., KANSAS CITY, NEW YORK · Nov 28, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 48.

A LESSON FOR THE CHURCH TO-DAY

FOLLOWING is the lesson which the historian of the Reformation, D'Aubigne, draws from the death of Zwingle and the defeat of the Swiss Reformers at Cappel. In it is a lesson for Protestants now:—

Thus the Reformation, that had deviated from the right path, was driven back by the very violence of the blow into its primitive course, having no other power than the Word of God. An inconceivable infatuation had taken possession of the friends of the Bible. They had forgotten that our warfare is not carnal; and they had appealed to arms and to battle. But God reigns; He punishes the churches and the people who turn aside from His ways.

We have thus taken a few stones, and piled them as a monument on the battle-field of Cappel, in order to remind the church of the great lesson which this terrible catastrophe teaches. As we bid farewell to this sad scene, we inscribe on these monumental stones, on the one side, these words from God's Book:—

"SOME TRUST IN CHARIOTS, AND SOME IN HORSES: BUT WE WILL REMEMBER THE NAME OF THE LORD OUR GOD. THEY ARE BROUGHT DOWN AND FALLEN; BUT WE ARE RISEN, AND STAND UPRIGHT."

And on the other, this declaration of the Head of the church:—

"MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD."

If from the ashes of the martyrs at Cappel a voice could be heard, it would be these very words of the Bible that these noble confessors would address, after three centuries, to the Christians of our days. That the church has no other King than Jesus Christ; that she ought not to meddle with the policy of the world, derive from it her inspiration, and call for its swords, its prisons, its treasures; that she will conquer by the spiritual powers which God has deposited in her bosom, and, above all, by the reign of her adorable Head; that she must not expect upon earth thrones and mortal triumphs; but that her march is like that of her King, from the manger to the cross, and from the cross to the crown: such is the lesson to be read on the blood-stained page that has crept into our simple and evangelical narrative.