August 21, 2024 Show with Dr. Joseph C. Morecraft III on “The English Reformation of the 16th Century”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father, James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer, George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister, George Norcross, and sports legend, Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27, verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 21st day of August, 2024.

Before I introduce to you my guest and our topic for the day, I want to remind all men in ministry leadership, you are invited to the next free biannual Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon, which will be held Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania.

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Let's try to beat the record that we broke on our last Pastors Luncheon. We had over 250 in attendance when Dr. Joel Beeky of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan was our keynote speaker.

So let's try to even top that amazing number of people who attended. That's Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is Perry County, Pennsylvania.

I hope to see many of you men in ministry leadership there. Well, I'm absolutely thrilled, as I always am, whenever I have this frequently returning guest on the program. His name is Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III.

He is definitely no stranger to the listeners of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, especially if they listen regularly, since he is on so often, and he's on so often, because he is just a phenomenal guest. And that's not only my opinion, but a growing number of you in the audience are recognizing that fact and letting me know about it.

Dr. Moorcraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and the author of the eight-volume commentary on the Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity. And today he's gonna be addressing the English Reformation of the 1660s, what the American church in the 21st century can learn from it.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my dear friend, Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III.

Always an enjoyment to be with you, Chris.

Well, why don't you remind our listeners about Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia.

Cumming, Georgia is the county seat of Forsyth County, which is just outside the northern edge of metropolitan Atlanta. Our church is about 10 years old. We started with about 25 people. And now on Sunday, we have anywhere from 55 to 75.

And we continue to grow. We have many young adults that are aggressive and zealous and always active in advancing the kingdom of God and spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are a member of a small denomination called Reformed Presbyterian Church, Hanover Presbytery, that has 20 or so churches all over the country.

We are thoroughly committed to the inerrancy of scripture, to the keeping out of the Great Commission. And our doctrinal statement is the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, written in the 1640s.

Our people come from every kind of background. We are very involved in evangelism and world missions. And it is a joy to be the pastor of this people.

Amen, well, if you live in the Cumming, Georgia area, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones who do, or if you're just passing through that area and you wanna visit a solid church on the Lord's Day, you can visit their website to find out more about them and to get directions, heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

Also, if you want to find out more about the eight-volume commentary on the Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity, which has been written by my guest, Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III.

If you go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com, and for all of Dr. Moorcraft's books, booklets, and other things about him, go to comprehensivechristianity .com, comprehensivechristianity .com, and God willing, we will repeat that information later on in the program.

And I'm gonna give our listeners our email address right away, in the event that they have a question for Dr. Moorcraft, it is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

As always, please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. And only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

The Importance of Church History for Understanding the Reformation

Well, as I've already announced, our theme today, by your selection, is the English Reformation of the 1660s, and what the American church in the 21st century can learn from it. That is a tight window of history, the 1660s.

If you could, obviously, let us know why this period of time is so important for even Christians over, or a little less than, I should say, 400 years later.

Well, it is, the whole area from the 16th century through the 17th century are the two centuries that defined what America would be in its earliest days. And if we don't understand what went on in the 16th and 17th centuries, the 1500s and the 1600s, we will never understand what we were meant to be.

And I love history. It has been my life. I read books on history all the time. I have 40, 55 lectures on the history of the church from the first century to the 18th on sermonaudio .com. That can be had for nothing, of course.

There's 25 more lectures on there on John Calvin and his friends, the people of that his day that we don't normally think of. So those are all available on Sermon Audio. I might say one other thing really quickly.

We found something we didn't know we had this week. We found hundreds and hundreds of MP3s and CDs of sermons and lectures. And we found scores and scores of books that I've written. And they're all available for free.

Wow.

If you will call the number at Heritage Presbyterian Church, the lady that'll answer the phone will tell you all about them.

Wow.

But anyway, history is one of the most important things we can study. History, Christians for a long time, up until the late 20th century had just neglected their history. And as a result, we made a lot of mistakes and we were swayed by our enemies.

Christians in the last half of the 20th century and today by and large, most of them see Christianity as a pond that the shallows, that what we believe in practice in Christian churches today, the way it always has been done, which of course is in error.

That Christianity is a river that has been flowing for hundreds and hundreds of years. And we have forgotten to study that river. And as a result, we have become stagnant. We have become polluted. Our little pond is full of mosquito larvae.

It's covered with algae. And if you drink it, you'll die. So it's very important for Christians to understand the theology of the Bible and the history that that theology created. I wanna begin with two introductory remarks.

The first is a sentence by a man named Houghton in Daubigny's introduction in his book, The History of the Reformation in England. And he said this, he who does not know what has happened in his past will forever remain a child.

That is immature, undiscerning, led by emotions, no understanding about his place in the role of God's kingdom. And so most Christians, they are children because they don't understand what has happened in the past.

How do we come to where we are today? Why are things so bad in the United States today? Why are things that are good, good in the United States today? We must understand our past or we will forever remain a child.

The second thing is, I wanna read a definition of history for you. It's Isaiah. And it's in the 25th chapter of Isaiah and the first verse. Oh Lord, thou art my God, salty, I will give thanks to thy name.

Here's the definition of history. For thou hast worked wonders, plans formed long ago with perfect faithfulness, is the record of the wonder working power of almighty God carrying out his eternal plans.

With absolute perfect faithfulness to his word. Let me say it one more time in case somebody's taking notes, which I hope they are. That history is the record of God's wonder working power carrying out eternal plans long ago with faithfulness.

A person that doesn't know history doesn't know God. He may read the Bible a lot, may go to church a lot if he doesn't know history. He's not gonna make much about what he reads the Bible. It's gonna be superficial, shallow and more influenced by the reigning philosophies of our day than by that word.

The more you understand history, the more you'll love God, the more you'll appreciate his greatness and his power and that he moves all things along by his powerful word. Christ holds all things together.

So history, as somebody said, is the story of the omnipotent power of God carrying out his plans in perfect faithfulness to his word. And I'd like for us to talk today about one of the most important eras in the history of our church and in the history of Christianity.

In the year, oh, in the fifth century, Augustine and his writings were used by God to bring about a great revival that we still experience. His books still sell by the thousands in the 21st century and they were written in the fourth and the fifth.

Before Augustine, the Greeks had no appreciation for history. They didn't care about history. They had no place for the history of individuals and their philosophical thoughts. And so as a result, the church backslid from its early days.

So then Augustine writes his book on the city of God, his book on confessions and many other books and recovered history, recovered the importance of the individual. And since that time, people have appreciated what history means.

There was a book that was on the New York Times bestseller for months called How the Irish Saved Christianity.

Wow, I actually purchased that book as a gift for someone and I've got to get my own copy and read that.

Well, the first half is all Augustine. How the Irish Saved Civilization, that's the name of it. And so as long as Augustine was the dominant force in the church of that day, there were great things that's happening.

And then at about the 12th or 13th century, people quit reading Augustine and started reading a man named Thomas Aquinas. Augustine's premise was, on the basis of which he wrote everything, was you cannot understand anything in all of life without the word of God.

That the Bible is the all sufficient word and it is the basis for all knowledge in all areas. As long as the church believed that, there was strength. But then with the coming of Thomas Aquinas, the church left Augustinianism and started believing, well, you need the Bible for some things, but you don't need the Bible to understand everything.

And so with that, you have the Middle Ages that went on for a thousand years where the church just abandoned its roots in scripture, betrayed the people that it was supposed to shepherd, lost any biblical vision.

Of course, I'm talking about the medieval church, the Roman Catholic church. And it stayed under Thomas Aquinas' influence. So the word of God was not the supreme authority in all areas of life. Human reason was.

And so eventually that darkness got deeper and deeper with the enlightenment of the Renaissance, first of all. The Renaissance said, what if you don't need the Bible to understand some areas of life? You don't need the Bible to understand any area of life.

And so the Renaissance was a complete betrayal of Christianity.

Wow.

And made man the reason of all things, the measure of all things. So the basis of knowledge was human reason and it threw aside Christianity. It no longer believed in divine revelation. And then God raised up some great preachers in the 16th century.

In the 1500s, God raised up men that shook the way. One of those men, John Calvin, said, in Geneva, Switzerland, said, I'm just an Augustinian. In other words, he said, we're going to go back over the head of the Renaissance, over the head of Thomas Aquinas, and go back to Augustine and the Bible, and reemphasize the fact that the word of God is the supreme and final authority in all areas of life and knowledge.

And with that, you have the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Europe had been in darkness for a thousand years. It believed what the Roman Catholic Church taught, and so it was really in darkness for a thousand years.

In fact, could we pick up right where you left off there when we come back from our first commercial break? Just don't forget that we have arrived at the point where the world has been in darkness for a thousand years.

And if you are listening and have a question of your own, send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least. City and state of residence and country of residence.

We'll be right back with Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III right after these messages. Don't go away. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners.

From all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland. Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards. And Dr. Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight volume commentary on the larger catechism.

Heritage is a member of the Hanover Presbytery built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great Protestant reformation of the 16th century.

Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the triune God that continues in eternity.

For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Or call 678 -954 -7831. That's 678 -954 -7831. If you visit, tell them Joe O 'Reilly and Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, Mattai in County Kildare, Ireland, sent you.

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So go to royaldiadem .com and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft, the third pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and also author of the eight-volume commentary on the Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity.

We are discussing the English Reformation of the 1660s. And right before the break, you were talking about how the church beginning to identify more with the teachings of Thomas Aquinas over that of Augustine, you believe plunged the world into a period of darkness that lasted a thousand years.

And this was also largely due to the replacement of the Bible and the understanding of the populace with the brilliance, wisdom and ingenuity of men. And if you could be also more specific about the time period, when you say a thousand years of darkness, what time frame are we talking about?

We're talking about right after Augustine's death, which was in the early part of the 15th century to the beginning of the 16th century. After darkness came light.

Post-Tenebrous Lux.

Yes, sir. And light came from men that God raised up to go back to the original, to go back to the word of God, to go back over the heads of the Renaissance people and the Thomas Aquinas people and the Roman Catholic Church and go back to the pure fountain of the word of God.

And it accelerated with Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door at Wittenberg, Germany and a printer printing them in German and setting all of Europe, Northern Europe on fire. How the Reformation got to England, that's where we want to talk about today.

How the Reformation got to England is a fantastic story of the utter sovereignty of God's grace. England had in the, before the 16th century, there were several men that God used to prepare them for it.

One was the Christians on the Island of Iona, Scotland, off the Southwest coast of Scotland in the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th century. And that little group of people on an Island three miles long and one mile wide had universal influence.

They were attacked by the Roman Catholic. They were attacked by the Vikings. And so they fled to the mountains of Scotland and maintained their church through all of those centuries. They didn't come under the supremacy of the Pope.

And then at about the 13th or 14th century, a man named John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English and raised up an organization of evangelists called the Lollards to take the English Bible and the gospel to all of England.

And the first people to follow them and to be influenced by them were these culties, these ancient cultic Christians who'd been hiding out in the mountains for centuries trying to maintain the faith. So they were influenced by John Wycliffe and the Lollards.

Now, when you said cultic, did you mean Celtic?

Celtic, C-E-L-T-I-C.

Oh, that's a relief.

We got to get that straight. And that would be a shame if I was misunderstood. And so then God raised up a man named William Tyndale. And whereas Wycliffe translated the Bible out of the Latin Vulgate, Tyndale translated the Bible out of the Hebrew and Greek.

And that's the beginning of Reformation. Henry VIII was king of England in the first part of the 16th century. Henry VIII was a tyrant. I think probably the worst and most wicked king England has ever had.

He was a bloodthirsty tyrant. And I say bloodthirsty because he would burn at the stake witless followers. And he outlawed William Tyndale's Bible. But he basically, God used him to bring revival to England.

In that, Henry VIII wanted to get a divorce. He was married to a woman and he fell in love with another woman named Anne Boleyn, fell in love with her. And he wanted to, how can he get rid of his first wife, Catherine?

He's got to get rid of her, but the Roman Catholic Church doesn't believe in divorce. So he tried to get, he tried to get the Pope's permission. The Pope wouldn't give him permission. He tried to get permission from all kinds of leaders, Roman Catholic leaders throughout Europe.

And they wouldn't give it to him. So he said, okay, forget you. So he left the Roman Catholic Church so that he could divorce his first wife and marry the second. And of course, when he got divorced, he got excommunicated by the Pope.

So he started the Church of England, which was Roman Catholic in all of its doctrines, except it did not recognize the supremacy of the Pope. The new Pope, so to speak, the new head of the church, was Henry VIII.

And the English monarch has been the head of the Church of England ever since that time. Only with one exception, and that is Oliver Cromwell. But he declares himself head of the church. And if you don't agree with that, you get burned at the stake.

He even burned at the stake one of his dear friends, Thomas More, who would not renounce the supremacy of the church. And so he was a bloodthirsty killer. And he married this woman. Somebody lied about her, told him she was unfaithful, had her beheaded so he could marry somebody else.

So there's six wives in Henry VIII's life. The aunt lived him, but he killed two, three of them. He was a lecherous sinner. He wrote a book on— before he left the Roman Catholic Church, he wrote a book defending the Roman Catholic faith.

And the Pope gave him a great honor for doing so.

Yeah, he was called Defender of the Faith by Rome.

Sir?

He was called officially by the Pope the Defender of the Faith.

Correct. And so they're free—. England is free from the Pope's influence. And so that gave a little bit of freedom to the people that were followers of Luther and Calvin to preach and to spread the Reformation faith.

Henry VIII's Archbishop of Canterbury was a man named Thomas Cranmer, one of my heroes. The life of me, I'm not sure why he liked Thomas Cranmer, because Thomas Cranmer was a solid Calvinist.

Yes.

But he held the highest position in the Church of England. And Henry VIII depended upon him a great deal. And the only reason Thomas Cranmer did not lose his head in all this stuff is because he compromised and said that the king could get a divorce.

But the priests of the Church of England couldn't preach, fortunately, because they didn't believe the truth. So Thomas Cranmer took advantage of his situation and wrote a book of sermons and had Henry require that all the priests in the Church of England preach his sermons every Sunday.

So even though these priests didn't know anything, totally ignorant of the Bible and Christianity, every Sunday in church after church all over England, Thomas Cranmer's reformed sermons were read by these preachers.

Wow.

And so you see the sovereignty of God, how the Reformation began to spread in England, even though Henry was no friend of its doctrine. And it spread by God in his sovereignty using this lecherous, bloodthirsty man.

Also, he had William Tyndale killed because he didn't like Tyndale's English translation of the Bible. Tyndale's last prayer, Lord, open the king of England's eyes. One year later, Henry required that at least one English translation of the Bible must be in every church.

They just didn't put Tyndale's name on it. William Tyndale called the English Bible to spread all over England. Thomas Cranmer caused the word of God to be preached by people who didn't even believe it.

And so it began to spread. Henry died. The next in line was to be his daughter, Mary, in history called Bloody Mary. Mary was a devout Roman Catholic. She believed every doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.

She believed in the supremacy of the Pope. And so the Protestants in England were trying to think of everything they could do to keep Mary from being the next monarch of England, although she was supposed to be by law, being Henry's daughter.

So they conspired and realized there was another more distant heir to the throne, a young woman by the name of Jane. History's called her Lady Jane. No, excuse me, I'm getting ahead of myself. After Henry died, Henry had daughters and he was always trying to get a son and he had one.

And so Henry died and his son became the king of England. His name was Edward VI. And Edward VI was a Protestant. He was a godly young man. One of his teachers was Cranmer. One of his teachers was John Knox.

And Edward VI was a godly Calvinist. Sickly, died in his teens. But under him, the gospel and the Reformed faith and the Reformation spread like fire. Edward VI would get these great Reformed scholars from the continent of Europe and bring them to England to teach the preachers and other people.

Got Martin Boucher, who was a great German Reformer, but hadn't been heard of much today. One of my favorite Reformers. He got Martin Boucher to come to England. And Martin Boucher, the German, had written a book in English called The Reign of Christ.

In Latin, called the Regno Christi. You can buy that book still today at places like Barnes Noble, Westminster Press, places like that. It's called Melanchthon and Boucher. But it's worth getting just to read the last part.

Boucher's book called The Reign of Christ. What the purpose of that book was, was to teach the king of England how to bring reformation to every area and institution in England's life by means of the law and the gospel.

It is a great book. It's a great book to read. He taught the king how to apply the laws of the Old Testament and New Testament to the state and nation of England. He taught them the implications of the lordship of Christ and of the gospel for the institutions of people of England.

And that book had such an impact upon Edward VI that it caused Edward to try to reform the whole educational system of England. He had an Italian reformed person. His name was Peter Marger Vermillion.

He was a brilliant scholar. He had him come to England. And teach. And you say, well, how in the world did people that are Italians and Germans teach these English-speaking people? Everybody spoke Latin.

Everybody read in Latin. And so he brought these scholars there. God raised up more English preachers. And so the Bible was greatly accelerated. And the reformation was greatly accelerated under Edward VI.

But he was sick. And he didn't last long. And he died in his teens. Now the problem is, who's going to succeed Edward VI? The next one by law to follow, the ministry's called Bloody Mary because she burned all the hundreds of prophets.

And Mary, but her name was Lady Jane. She was a distant cousin. She had a distant claim on the throne. She was a young teenager. And so the Protestants in England convinced a dying Edward VI to appoint his cousin Jane to succeed him as Queen of England.

So she became the Queen. And she was of the reformation. She could read the Bible in Greek. And she loved the writings of the reformers. And she was a godly young woman. But she was king for only nine days because Mary was the more powerful of the two.