August 31, 2022 Show with Angelo Valle on “The Oracle of Parliament: A Contextual Reading of Stephen Marshall & His Thanksgiving Sermon Before Parliament (Sept. 21, 1641)

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this very last day of August 2022,

August 31st, 2022. And before I introduce my guest today, whom

I'm very excited to interview again, I wanted to repeat the wonderful news that I announced yesterday at the beginning of the program that we just recently, a couple of days ago, in fact, yesterday, we got confirmation that Dr.

Peter Van Cleek, Jr., who is one of the men who is an authority on the view of Scripture known as confessional bibliology, more well -known to laymen especially as the textus receptus only position, he has agreed to debate, my dear friend,

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon, which features Dr. James White as our keynote speaker.

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It's not that easy to find those who support either

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So I'm looking forward to meeting many of you for the first time and also rekindling old friendships and being with brethren that I know very well for fellowship in addition to that.

So I hope to hear from you soon with your registration. Today we have a returning guest to the program, someone whom

I love to interview, a man who I have become very extremely impressed with.

I heard him deliver an installment sermon, a challenge to the congregation of a mutual friend when he was being installed as pastor of a congregation, and I was really, for lack of a better term, blown away by the power of his message and the profound, articulate nature of his message, a biblically saturated message.

And I knew that I wanted to have him on my program then, which I did, and it's great that he's returning.

His name is Angelo Valley, pastor of Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania.

If you look up his photo on Facebook, you will be wondering why a

Presbyterian church in America has allowed a 13 -year -old boy to be their pastor.

Very young -looking man, but he is certainly, no matter how young or old he is, and I'm not certain, he is certainly a man equipped far beyond his age to open the

Word of God, that's for sure. Today we are going to be addressing the theme of his doctoral dissertation,

The Oracle of Parliament, a contextual reading of Stephen Marshall and his

Thanksgiving sermon before Parliament on September 21, 1641. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Angelo Valley.

Hey, Chris, it's a pleasure to be on again. It's always a joy to hear you and to participate in some way through this.

So thank you again for the privilege of being on. Oh, the pleasure is all mine, brother, and my listeners.

And tell us about, for those of my listeners who have not heard you on the program before, tell us about Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania.

Sure, Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria is a small rural congregation full of some of the warmest, most loving

Christians I've ever met. I'm always amazed at the kindness that they extend towards myself and my family.

And I'm very grateful that the Lord has called me to pastor there. I've been serving there about nine years.

When I was called there back in August of 2013, the church had, within the last couple of years, left the

United Church of Christ and was debating closing. Their background was from the

German Reformed tradition. And I saw the word Heidelberg Catechism in their constitution.

And so by God's mercy and grace alone, we've been able to help the congregation move back to its historic

Reformed heritage. And as of the last year and a half, we've come into the PCA.

And so we're a mission church working very closely with Oakwood PCA and State College Pennsylvania with an amazing provisional session.

Yes, and I don't want my listeners to be startled when you go to the website, because some have already commented to me, so you're having a

Christian Reformed church pastor on. And sadly, although there are still very faithful men in that denomination,

I'm not gonna broad brush them, sadly that denomination, the Christian Reformed church, known as the

CRC, has fallen from its very wonderful and biblical roots and has become, for the most part, very liberal and, dare

I say, in some circumstances, apostate. As I said, there are some good men in there. I don't think Dr.

Joel Niederhood ever left the CRC, who I have very high regard for.

But the website is crcalexandria .org, crcalexandria .org,

and that stands for Christ Reformed Church. So if you are visiting the area of Pennsylvania, Alexandria, where this church is located, or if you live in or near there, or if you have loved ones in or near there,

I strongly urge you either visit yourself or recommend this church. The Oracle of Parliament, a contextual reading of Stephen Marshall in his

Thanksgiving sermon before Parliament, September 21st in 1641. What compelled you to write your doctoral dissertation on this?

And perhaps even before you answer that, who was

Stephen Marshall? Sure, so I'll answer the most immediate question.

Stephen Marshall is a member of the Westminster Assembly, who is one of the most notable preachers from that group, and that's an amazing group of preachers.

He preached more before Parliament than anyone else. He was wonderfully connected, capable, and a very gifted pastor, often known for his pastoral tone.

So one reason I wanted to study him was, first, I wanted to pursue a doctorate in historical theology, and originally

I was a John Owen man, which you would know from our former podcaster interview together.

But there are a lot of Owen scholars today, a lot of people doing that. So in the work of research,

I wanted to try and find someone original. I was very grateful for another scholar named Marty Cowan, who's out in Northern Ireland, who pointed me towards Marshall.

And I just began to research and check him out. I'm a doctoral student right now at a

Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and so I got the opportunity to take a class with Dr.

Greg Salazar on the Westminster Assembly, and I just wanted to learn more about him. I'm hoping that my dissertation, when it's finished, will be on him and just further study, because there's a lot of room to add to the conversation in academics concerning this very talented and capable preacher.

Praise God. Well, what is so important, specifically about the more detailed description of our discussion today, the

Oracle of Parliament, a contextual reading of Stephen Marshall and his Thanksgiving sermon before Parliament?

What is so compelling about that, that you not only wrote your dissertation on that, but you also immediately knew that you wanted to discuss that today, knowing that we have many listeners in Iron Trip and Zion Radio's audience who love and appreciate history and very often are reformed, if not predominantly.

And what's so vital about this? Well, imagine with me this.

If you had an opportunity to preach before Congress a message, would you consider that an amazing opportunity?

Yes, and I would even have less respect for Congress if they asked me to do that. Well, we come to a time in the 1640s where preachers are welcome before the magistrates of the land, before the

House is present, and what would that be like? And so that was kind of a curiosity.

So all of this, with study of history, I think most historians start with the curiosity.

What was going on? What led to this? Why did this happen? What was the significance? Why him?

Why there? Why then? It becomes almost like a fun puzzle and at the same time an amazing story, an opportunity to learn.

And so one of the reasons I wanted to study this particular aspect was what is it about him that made him so special?

I love preaching. I love good preaching, right? You've ever had the misfortune of sitting under a bad preacher within the first three or four minutes, you think to yourself, oh my goodness, he's just getting started.

And so there are amazing preachers in the world who have the ability to just make God's word come alive.

So he's one of those characters. I wanted to try and understand what is it that made him special?

Why is he remembered? Why was he called on in the 11th hour to preach before Parliament? It's not a small, out -of -the -place thing.

It's the Parliament of the nation. So what's going on in his mind? What's driving him? What's leading him?

And then more importantly, what is his message? What does he have to say to them? How is he hoping to shepherd the hearts of the people who are leading the nation?

How is he shepherding the nation through the Parliament? Well, tell us about the contents of this sermon that made it so important to you.

Well, the first thing I want to point out is that this was a Thanksgiving sermon. When I started researching this,

I didn't know much about the sort of sermons that people had before Parliament. I just thought, you know, given my American context, if you got to preach at all, you'd be thankful, and that's the end of it.

But there is a long -standing tradition in England of preachers before Parliament. There is this tradition beginning with Elizabeth I, and then thereafter, 40 years later, with the

Archbishop James Usher, who was a tremendous figure in the early English Reformation, especially leading up to the

Westminster Assembly. But his sermon particularly was a Thanksgiving sermon. He was thanking

God for what had happened to unite both

England and Scotland together and to hopefully lead the nation to further

Reformation. I think in order to understand his message, we have to understand his context and what was going on.

Because sermons happen in context, right? There's no sermon that just shows up out of left field.

I mean, you could always just have a sermon ready to go, that there's some preachers who do that. But typically, good preachers are spending their time understanding the people, the context, and the moment so that God's timeless word intersects there and then with the message they...

So when we're considering the context of England at this time, the 1640s, we have to ask what happened before that.

Well, clearly, the 1630s. In the 1630s, England had come under the hand, the heavy hand of Archbishop William Laud, who had begun to de -evolve the

English Reformation in a manner almost as bad as it was with Mary Tudor.

And so you have a context where people had witnessed the silencing of Puritans or godly voices, a context where there was a return to Roman or papal practices in the

Church of England, and a great concern of God's judgment on the land. You know, one of the things

I really enjoy as I study these figures at this time is that there is a clear concern for the hand of God in their myths.

Now, depending on the person, they may presume that this over -reading of Providence could be unnecessarily subjective, but there is a guiding yearning for the people of God to live faithfully unto

Him. And what I find fascinating about Marshall especially, as well as others who were preaching before Parliament because he wasn't alone, was that they were constantly concerned with the land honoring

God, with the Lord and His blessing and how to pursue it, and at the same time how to avoid

His wrath and His judgment. You know, I wonder how many churches today think like that, and I think that's kind of a fascinating angle.

So, with that being the case, one of the things I wanted to look at with Marshall was finding more information about him.

There's not a lot of people who have done work on Stephen Marshall. Like, when we think about John Owen, we think of people like Sinclair Ferguson, Dr.

Dane Hyde just did his work on Owen as well, or Crawford Gribben, or Marty Cowan and others, but there's not a lot of work really done on him.

There was a couple of dissertations in the 20th century, there was an article in the year 2000 that said the work should be done, there was a self -published book, but that's really it.

And so one of the reasons I wanted to pursue this subject was to help fill a hole in scholarship, not just for the sake of the academy, but for the church.

How can we learn from good preachers? Does that make sense, Chris? Absolutely.

And in this day and age, it's rare, extremely rare, and right now at this very moment, it could be proven wrong, but I can't think of an instance where someone had been given the opportunity to speak before Congress that was as theologically faithful and biblically sound as Stephen Marshall, to have a public voice amongst very important leaders of the nation, and one could only pray and hope that that kind of a thing will occur again in our day when it's needed just as much as it was needed then, and perhaps even more.

In fact, I would be certain that it's needed more when we witness things going on in our nation that even the most liberal individual of Marshall's day, the most nominal of Christians who were

Christians in name only, or even those that openly rejected the scriptures and the

Christian faith, they would be horrified, on average, by what is going on in our world, the wholesale slaughter of infants, the so -called marrying of men to men and women to women, the outright violation of the

Constitution, and you could go on and on with these amazing things that are occurring in a horrifying manner, but perhaps paint more of a detailed picture about what you're speaking about in regard to why this word was such a perfectly timed word obviously orchestrated and ordained from God.

Well, the 1640s was a time of unprecedented religious and political upheaval among the three kingdoms of the

British Isles. In that decade alone, the leaders of both church and state would go on to be imprisoned, they would be tried, they would be beheaded at the command of Parliament.

The 1640s, the very decade where the Westminster Confession and catechisms come together was a messy, chaotic, crazy time.

And part of my pursuit of this particular sermon, because there are many, was that 1641, that year in particular, contained many of the seeds which eventually would blossom into that ripe or rotten fruit, depending on how you view that.

And so looking at Marshall in particular, we find someone who's taking the moment, taking it by the horns, you know, you've heard that phrase before, take the bull by the horns.

He saw this opportunity and he was someone who was well -connected. He was somebody who was not an unknown.

He was well -known in his community and with the political powers that be, like John Pym, the

Earl of Warwick, and others there and then, he was a well -connected man, but he didn't use that alone for political advantage.

Marshall, alongside Cornelius Burgess, who also preached in the 1640s as well,

November 20th, 1640, I'm getting the date wrong off the top of my head, November 17th, there you go.

They wrote this, they said, maintaining, protecting, encouraging of an able, godly, faithful, zealous, profitable preaching ministry in every parish, church and chapel throughout

England and Wales. So these men were moved by the Spirit, seeking to have the

Parliament help lead the nation in a direction that honored Christ. They saw the

Church of England, even though it was spotted and mortared by virtue of the Laudanism of the day and the stifling of faithful biblical preaching in various points, as a true church, but one of further sanctification.

You know, we can identify with that, right? Because anytime someone's ever asked you, hey, how's your prayer life? An appropriate answer is, it's good, but it could be better.

When we think about our world and our national churches, and I mean that as our denominations,

I'm in the PCA, I think it's something like that, it wouldn't be hard for someone to say, you know, the PCA needs further sanctification, or the

OPC needs further sanctification, or the URCNA needs further sanctification, or whatever.

We need to grow in loving and pursuing Christ. And so Marshall gave this broad image in his first sermon when he spoke before them in 1640 in November the 17th, he made it even more clear in September 7th, 1641.

He came not on a fast sermon when they were humbling themselves before the Lord. Can you imagine that?

You know, a fast by the nation's leaders calling out to Christ. Instead, it's a thanksgiving for God's faithfulness.

And what was the fourfold intent? That the people would have erected before them an able, godly, faithful, zealous, profitable preaching ministry.

Not only would it be erected, but it would be maintained, and that it would be protected, and it would be encouraged.

This was the call that was belling from Marshall's heart, that these men would help to establish a church whose foundations stood upon the purity of God's word to determine the church and state that God might be praised in simplicity and purity, because the church was a new

Jerusalem. And Marshall in particular saw these men following the tradition before him of fast sermons as the representatives of England before God.

I mean, this just... You know, when I was growing up, I didn't hear any sermon like this.

I don't know about you, Chris. The sort of sermons you heard growing up throughout your time? Actually, I didn't hear any growing up.

I was raised Roman Catholic, and there was typically just pathetic little homilies that were five minutes long, and I don't even, right now, remember any of them, except when

I was 18 years old, being at a Christmas Eve sermon, and hearing the palpably effeminate priest telling everybody that we're all

God's children, gay, straight, you name it. That's the only thing that is unfortunately etched in my memory about the so -called sermons growing up.

Well, I knew that. I grew up, I didn't really ever hear about things like this, and the sort of sermons

I heard. And so, I think one benefit that we can have when we listen to voices outside of our century is that we can be reminded of the timelessness of God's Word, as well as the unique ways that they sought to apply it.

You know, so going back to this sermon that Marshall provided, that he presented before the

Parliament on September 7, 1641, he makes it a point to note the ways that God had been faithful in their community.

So, here's one excerpt from that. He says this, Oh, wonderful!

Oh, wonderful!

Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful!

Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful!

Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful!

Oh, wonderful! Oh, wonderful! and your country of residence.

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages with more of Pastor Angelo Valley. I'll be speaking along with Stephen Lawson, Josh Weiss, founder of G3 Ministries, and Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker, co -hosts of the

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That's royaldiadem .com. We're now back with Angelo Valli, and Angelo Valli, as I stated earlier, is a pastor of Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania, a congregation in the

Presbyterian Church in America. We are discussing the Oracle of Parliament, a contextual reading of Stephen Marshall in his

Thanksgiving sermon before Parliament, and do you want to follow up on anything that you were saying before the break before I read to you any listener questions?

No, no, I'm good. Thank you, Bill. Okay. Well, we have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who wants to know, how well was

Marshall's sermon received by Parliament, and did it have any noticeable effect upon the nation at the time?

Well, my first response would be, it seems that it was well -received because he was called back.

The most basic thing with a preacher is if you do a good job, they'll call you back. If you don't, they won't.

One of the things we see is that following these sermons, again, going from 1641, and on that particular day, it wasn't just him preaching.

It was also Jeremiah Burroughs, who's just another noted Puritan. Following their actor, we're going to be having the calling of the

Westminster Assembly, which happened on July 1st, 1643, a year and a half or so later.

They heeded the call. It wasn't just Marshall. Marshall was one voice of many.

He was just one singer in the large chorus of people calling out against the anti -papal sentiments of the 1630s, against Archbishop William Laws, the overreach of that, and then paired that with the ineptitude of Charles I.

Charles I, the King of England, was regularly inept, and it was his political and ecclesiastical mishandlings which set the groundwork very clearly for all that was to follow.

So with all those things in mind, my brief assessment is that he was very successful parliamentarian to move towards reformation insofar as a

Puritan or reformed person would see. Well, thank you, Bobby. We have

C .J. from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, and he said, in studying

Marshall, his sermon, and writing your dissertation on it, have you learned anything that you could walk away with to teach and proclaim to not only your own church, but to any

Christians with a listening ear on how the Christian church can be more involved in politics or am

I off base in thinking that you would draw that conclusion? I don't think you're off base. It's honestly an issue that I'm presently wrestling.

You know, when I was growing up, there was no conversation about politics, and then

I was in a church when I was younger that essentially had a Fourth of July Sunday where instead of hymns, we mixed in songs about the military and there were flags everywhere, which left a very bad taste in my mouth about considering politics and the church as a whole.

But as I've had some time to recover from that and think, I'm presently wrestling through what is the appropriate place of a

Christian's interaction with the government. You know, I find a couple potential options today, right?

So we have the Two Kingdoms view that's very common from Westminster, California, and the Escondido theology coming from David Van Druinen, who's a very excellent scholar.

You have the more Kuyperian and even some Neo -Kuyperian things building off of Abraham Kuyper's work.

You have, of course, the Theonomists, Reconstructionists. You have the

Establishmentarian principle from our Reformed Presbyterian friends. I mean, there's a lot of ways that this could go.

And so at the present, I'm still wrestling through it. But with that being said, at the very least, we as preachers have a responsibility and a duty to call a spade a spade.

We have a responsibility to say, this is right, this is wrong, this is godly, this is ungodly, this pleases

God, this does not please God. And that the Lord is not indifferent about the choices of nations, right?

We see that throughout Genesis and Exodus and thereafter, that a typical understanding of God and His interactions with nations is

He is not indifferent about their sin. He hands nations over to sin, right? We see

Jonah sent to Nineveh. Eventually you see Nineveh demolished. We read the Book of Nahum. So those are all various factors that are going in.

So what's the practical application for me right now with Stephen Marshall? Don't be afraid to preach the truth.

If a nation is in sin, speak it. Speak it boldly, speak it clearly. Call it to repentance. Amen. And well, before I ask my own question, let me squeeze in another listener question because we are approaching our midway break already.

Sure. We have Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania. Hey, he should come visit us.

And Joseph says, is Marshall's Thanksgiving sermon available by any publisher in a booklet or tract form and would it be something of value, in your opinion, to have available as a church lobby giveaway, especially...

Well, the Thanksgiving sermon models in many ways what is a typical Christian response to good things that happen in our life.

We often pause and thank the Lord. We don't ever want to be ingrains to His smiling providence which comes upon us.

But with that being said, I don't know if it would be necessarily best. It would be dependent upon the reader because the version that I used was from Early English Books Online, which would be the way that you could find it.

Early English Books Online, I don't remember the exact years, but I think it covers all published

English works from 14 -something up until the 1800s. So that would be one way to go about looking at it.

I also utilize archive .org. There's a lot of free, older public domain works there.

But again, when you read that, you recognize that you're reading books before spelling was standardized. You recognize that the letter

S is going to look like F sometimes. You have to recognize all those things together.

There is a collected version of these works in hardcover form.

I was holding them just a couple weeks ago when I was checking out the paper versions of it at Puritan Reforms Library in Grand Rapids.

But I've only played with the digital copies of it. So that would be my recommendation. I think you would have to read it first and know your congregation.

There's some people in my congregation who would never want to read that, and that's okay. It's not a mark against them.

Deep historical theology like this isn't a mark of sanctification. But it is for some.

Well, obviously, you wouldn't want to not do something like providing a booklet like that, especially if you were to modernize the language and the fonts and all that, just because some people are going to reject it.

I mean, if you were going to have that as a mindset, I better not make this available because there are going to be some people that reject it.

Most great Christian literature would never be available anywhere. Well, I'm in agreement with you,

Chris. I'm just saying that there's not a modern version out there right now. So that might be a project for somebody who wants to do that.

Yeah, well, we do have publishers that advertise on this show, so who knows? That would be something that I think would be a good idea.

We have an anonymous listener who says, you mentioned the church's involvement with politics.

I have found it all too often the case, even in the congregation where I worship, where things that are biblical prohibitions and clearly described as damning and satanic activity are far too often relegated to the category of political issues that we should not bring to the pulpit.

Don't you find this to be the case, or is it just something that I am unusually experiencing in my own life?

Well, I may be misunderstanding the question. That was a long one. But if I understood it correctly, one of the things that I think is necessary for preachers is to leave no stone unturned.

I think there is no taboo. You have to speak about everything, regardless of a hobby horse or a love for some people or perhaps even something that you're concerned may offend others.

One of the principles that I think is important for preachers is to call a spade a spade.

So if you're dealing in a unique political context that isn't sin, then you have to address that.

And you have to inform your people as to what God's word says, and encourage and equip them to interact with it.

We don't want to put our heads in the sand and not address things or things like that. And there may be people who are in sin and don't understand the sinfulness or the dangers of the things they're in.

And so we want to help those who are ignorant. And I mean that in the kindest, most literal sense of that word. Chris, do you think that was sufficient?

I want to make sure I understood the question correctly. No, you appeared to. And when we come back from our midway break, perhaps

I'll elaborate on what I believe the listener was saying. But we have to go to our midway break.

Please be patient with us, folks. The midway break is always longer because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show so that they can air their own public service announcements and other things that the

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We'll be right back. Attention all men in ministry leadership.

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Satan is the father of lies and spin and the mother of those lies is a government who has rejected

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and put I need a church in the subject line That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Angelo Valley We have been discussing the

Oracle of Parliament a contextual reading of Stephen Marshall and his

Thanksgiving sermon before Parliament on September 21st 1641 and just to throw in my two cents about the anonymous listeners question before the break,

I think he was probably talking about the fact that there are even conservative pastors and churches who may realize that abortion is infanticide they may realize and agree that sodomy is a damnable sin and that there is no such thing as a marriage between a man and a man and a woman and a woman no matter what any court in America or the world says but they don't want to talk about those specific issues from the pulpit because they have deemed them to be political issues

I think that's probably what and our listener can even clarify it yourself if you want to send in a follow up email, but does that make sense

Angelo? Yeah, with that clarification I stand by what I said as a minister of the gospel you expect the

Bible to impact all of life, there isn't some sort of spiritual force field over politics or political matters or contemporary issues

Amen, and by the way if you want Stephen Marshall's thanksgiving sermon in written form

Pastor Angelo has made it available in a digital form to me and if you send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com I can get that to you or you can even contact

Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria Pennsylvania, and that website again is crcalexandria .org

CRC Let's see, we have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, New York who says

How does Stephen Marshall stand out to you among great heroes of the faith that may be more well known?

What is unique about his contribution to the Christian faith? That's a great question

There's a sense where Marshall in superhero films, it's kind of our thing and you know if you can use, if you can forgive the illustration, it's like the

Justice League Who's your favorite person on the Justice League? Oh, I love Superman. Oh, I love Batman. Oh, I love Green Lantern.

Nobody says Aquaman Oh, I love... By the way, Batman is the best superhero because he is believable He is an ordinary guy who, albeit in good shape and a creative inventor and all that, but he's an ordinary guy that fights crime, and it's actually a believable character.

But anyway, that's my dissent. No, no, that's all good. If you look online, our pictures are with Batman shirts on That's right

I think one of the things that, so to pull that Justice League example, all these characters are amazing in different ways.

These are not small men I mean, the intellect, the capability, and the genuine piety surrounding them, and them being the members of the

Westminster Assembly I think they all have something unique to offer. Some of them are often highlighted more than others but I think one of the things that was most winsome to me about Stephen Marshall was his moderation and tone, which sounds ironic given that you do some research on one of the next sermons he'll preach called

Mero's Curse, which is calling for the shedding of blood, which is not always something we want to celebrate.

But going back to the thing about Marshall his ability to try and find a peaceful resolution in other situations, in committees, in moderating positions, both before the founding of the long parliament which was called the

Westminster Assembly and afterwards, I think that makes him an interesting figure. And then also that nobody's really doing work on him.

There's a lot of great theological treatises, theological works, sermons that are just now being digitized and made available.

And so it's scholars who are now catching up with the quantity of information available. And so that's the need for good churchmen, churchwomen, serious

Christians, as well as pastors and theologians to interact with these characters. So I think those are some useful reasons.

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to do so. Sorry for the shameless plug, but... No, it's good. Good publishers, those people matter.

I mean, that's the sort of stuff you need in people's hands. I mean, these sermons, to go back to the topic, they would deliver them if Parliament liked them, they would thank the individual who preached publicly, and then they would send them to the press, and get out into the people's hands.

I mean, that's how things happen. Good books, the power of the press. Or in this case, good

PDFs, the power of the Internet. We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know whether you agree with a minister like Abraham Kuyper, who also became prime minister of the

Netherlands. I don't know if he had those roles simultaneously, but there are some people that don't believe a minister of the

Gospel should be running for office, even solid men, theologically, and of course there's disagreement.

There are men that I know that are very sound theologically, who have run for office.

So, what is your opinion on that? Well, Kuyper is somebody who I want to study more of.

One of the pragmatic difficulties of being a pastor student is I don't always have the time to read what

I want to read for fun. And so, Kuyper is there right now. I know Canon Press has just done a recent publishing by Pastor Uri Bredow on The Stone Lectures of Kuyper.

He's someone I'm sympathetic with, but I don't like jumping into people's camps without thoroughly examining their work.

I mean, the benefit is that he's dead, so it's not going to be like... It's not going to be that I agree with him, and then in two years be like, oh, why did he say that?

But I would commend them to read The Stone Lectures themselves, and then begin to read his other larger works which have been made available,

I think through Lexham Press, through Logos Bible Software and other publishers. Yeah, I think that that's also a good rule of thumb when naming a child.

If you're going to name your child after somebody famous, name them after somebody who's dead, not a famous, currently living sports figure, because you have no idea what that person may do, even if they're living a wholesome and clean and honorable life now.

You've got to be careful with that. Yeah, it makes a big difference. And make sure that if you're looking up a

Biblical name, know the story. Know whether or not you want to name the baby girl Jezebel. I want to know why the parents of Ichabod Spencer, a great

Presbyterian minister of the 19th century, I have no idea why they picked that name.

I don't think I ever found out. No idea. That's a fun one. Thank you,

Susan Margaret, for your excellent question. And if you could, just give us some more compelling reasons why we should know about this event in history, why we should learn more about Marshall, and why we should learn more about his

Thanksgiving sermon. Sure. Well, one of the things I want to just kind of focus in on is the last 14 pages of the sermon.

So if you go online and get the PDF of the sermon, it's about 50 -something pages.

So I mean, it's 50 -something pages. It's a big sermon. They didn't preach small homilies, at least not these guys.

And so one of the things that you'll notice in the last 14 pages or so is not just the historical context, but the call to action.

You know, so Marshall is recognizing this sermon's a Thanksgiving sermon, right? So it's like a wedding celebration.

It's like a birthday. You know, everyone's happy and exciting. And there's all these wonderful things going through Marshall's lips about God's goodness.

And yet Marshall's great call for Thanksgiving also involved a word of warning.

And so this caution that he laid before Parliament was simple. And it's helpful for us to recognize as well.

It's as if Marshall was warning them, saying, don't be so presumptuous about this victory. Just as God had so quickly brought it about, he may just as quickly pull it out from under your rug.

You know, he might pull it from your midst. And so what was it then in Marshall's estimate that could cause the death of joy or the birth of pain?

He said the great issue that could cause this failure was ingratitude. How many times have we taken the gifts of God and been indifferent about them, right?

How many of you this past Sunday at some point were thinking about something other than the sermon or the liturgy?

You took the Lord's Supper and your mind was somewhere else. So often we are so quick to disregard the privileges and blessings that God has given to us.

And so using Marshall to kind of transport his thought in some way to our present situation is he's warning us about ingratitude.

So to look at that particular time, Marshall's warning came before Parliament through a visual manner.

And this is what made Marshall special. He was a man of the people. He was someone who knew how to rub elbows.

So if we could use our context, he knew how to talk to somebody in the pub. He knew how to talk to somebody in the cigar shop.

He knew how to talk to somebody on the street, at the bus stop, in the library, in the post office, everywhere.

He knew how to use the phrases, words and idioms of the day. So much so that his opponents would deride him for that.

But Marshall said this. He said, God knows whether all these mercies may not be removed and destruction and misery yet breaking upon us.

When Tamar was to be delivered and the twins in her womb, Dara first put forth his hand, and they tied a scarlet thread about it, and said this came out first, but his hand was plucked in again, and his brother broke out before him.

So mercy and judgment, deliverance and ruin have seemed to be long struggling in the womb, which should first break out upon us.

O, that ingratitude cause not this hand to be plucked back again, and destruction yet to break in upon us.

And so Marshall's aim at this momentary Thanksgiving was not to blind them to the reality and costliness of the work which still laid ahead.

So we think of the historical context, Scotland and England, their union was merely the first step in a journey of a thousand miles.

Because we know a good beginning doesn't guarantee a good end, right? How many ministers do you know great beginnings?

And so if the call to obedience in the face of God's smiling providence is gratitude, then ingratitude is the great disruptor.

And this is something that Marshall's going to push forward. Again, Marshall, as an ordinary person of his time, thought

England was the new Israel and that her parliamentarians were the spiritual representatives of the people. And so there's a little rhetorical flourish that happens there.

He uses his episcopal dedicatory at the very beginning of the book to use a form of superlative self -humiliation that was typical for that time to lower himself but try to reach the men who were there and then.

He had no problem doing that and if you go through other sermons from that time, it's just the normal language of this day.

But Marshall writes, this nation to which God has been merciful above all nations upon the earth. He sees this as the premier opportunity.

God has blessed us greatly into whom much is given, much is required. He also reminds them that while this sermon is being preached,

Europe is at war. If we remember, Germany was at war. There's the reality of the 30 years war and what's going on there.

And so the metallic odor of blood shed by religious wars was wafted before their nostrils as Marshall said this, when our neighbor nations round about us see such days, when

Germany remains a field of blood, when their cities and towns are desolate, their wives ravished, their children killed, when many of them eat their dead carcasses and die for want of food, yea, when

God's sword rides in circuit round about us, these great things are done for us in hopes of greater and which is most wonderful.

All this done for the most unworthy and unthankful nation in all the world? He wasn't speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

He was saying that England was both simultaneously most blessed and equally unthankful. And so she was blessed because God extended the rod of his mercy, but her lack of thankfulness held her out as a spider above the fire.

It's not so much then to presume that Marshall listed the ways in which Germany suffered at the moment. He was warning

Parliament that should they be indifferent about the mercy of God, these horrors were stepping at their doorstep.

It was coming right there. And so the only thing separating them was the mercy of God, a mercy that could be withdrawn at any moment.

You know, when you begin to think in that way, it changes how you view your moment. When you recognize the mercy of God as an unwarranted gift, it changes how you approach that.

And so Marshall said that everything had to begin with the men themselves. He said that there were three points of application.

First, they needed to deal with themselves as individuals. Secondly, they had to deal with their families.

And thirdly, they had to deal with their kingdom. I want to continue to go on, but I want to make sure there aren't any questions or thoughts.

I think you should continue on before I take any more listener questions, because we have over a half hour left of the show, so continue.

Not a problem. So what does it look like to deal with yourself? So for Marshall, when he looked at the members of parliament or the

MPs, they weren't called simply to enact godly laws.

That wasn't enough. You know, what is it when you create a law that you don't follow yourself? You become a hypocrite, right?

We think of Jesus' strongest language against the Pharisees and the scribes, that they were hypocrites through and through.

We think of the woes of Christ. It wasn't enough for them to reform England in a legislative or political sense.

They, too, themselves, needed to be godly. Without this heart devoted to God, there would be no hope for the people of God in England.

As the leaders go, so goes the nation. That's kind of a basic concept that was going through them all. So according to Marshall, they were to be holy.

That is, separated for their work so that they would not be vassals of Satan in their labors.

Now think about that. Think about the boldness and the audacity. You're standing in a room of nobles, standing in a room full of the leaders of the nation, and you have the boldness, the spirit -wrought boldness, to stand before them and warn them not to be vassals of Satan in their labors.

Again, we do something to learn from the courage of the preachers there and then.

This is one of the joys of reading preachers beyond our era, beyond our moment, beyond our sound bites. So the first thing they needed to do was personal reformation.

The second thing that was necessary then was familial reformation. This means that the parliamentary members were called to straighten out their homes.

There was a calling for a purifying or reforming of the worship in their homes. The MPs were to root out various forms of idolatry that, quote, their families may be little congregations of saints with whom

God may delight to dwell. You see, idolatry was not just simply a religious danger there and then.

There was also this dynamic of a political consequence for idolatry. God is not unmoved by the sins of the nation, in Marshall's eyes.

And we've talked about that in part already. The choices of the land, beginning with its representatives, directed the course of the nation.

And so the rooting out of idolatry in preaching became a tactful, roundabout way of dealing with the sin of England.

Again, what was the thing that was crushing the churches and stifling so much of what the

Puritans—it was the effects and consequences of Archbishop William Laud in the 1630s, reintroducing so much of the

Roman Catholic papist practices in the churches. And so when he spoke about idolatry in preaching, and if you look at their sermons, idolatry in often times is a code work against the

Laudianism or papalism of the day. So consequently, the members of Parliament were instructed to get rid of, to clean out, to root out all the ceremonial excesses and papal dress from their homes in order to rightly honor

God and lead the nation in a way that would not result in its ruin. One of the things

I love about this, and you'll see it bleed over in Marshall's work later in the Westminster Assembly, and we'll see this in the larger catechism, is that individualism was insufficient.

The Westminster Larger Catechism expresses this in a great language when it talks about the duty of superiors, an idea which is found in seed form in these words, in these warnings.

And so I'll read that for you, if you're familiar with Westminster Larger Catechism, question 129, it says this, What is required of superiors toward their interiors?

That is, the heads of the home, use this example of the fathers, what is required of you, of your families? It's required of superiors, according to that power they receive from God and that relation wherein they stand to love, pray for, and bless their inferiors.

Again, when we say inferior, we're not talking in terms of an ontological inferiority, but in terms of ranks, like a general is above a private.

To instruct, he goes on, counsel and admonish them, countenancing them, commending and rewarding such as do well, discountencing, reproving and chastising such as do ill, protecting, providing for them all things necessary for soul and body, and by grave, wise, holy, and exemplary chariots, to procure glory to God, honor to themselves, and so to preserve that authority which

God hath put upon them. In short, it's to lead well. So they had to, it's a classic three -point sermon, deal with themselves, they had to deal with their families, and thereafter that is

Marshall's language here. Such a parliament man had to set his sight, to sweep the church and the kingdom.

He had to clean it up. How do they sweep the kingdom? How do they sweep this domain? Marshall's call to action looked out among the various parish churches, and his assessment was simply that there was yet much work to be done.

In fact, we forget so often that the Westminster Assembly did much to shape and transform the local parishes to help remove the pastors or priests who were unable to do their job well, who were just unqualified, or unfaithful, and a lot of their work was given towards the examination, preparation, and promulgation of godly pastors, and the examination thereof.

Chan, Ved, and Dixon have a great book on this, the Reformation Heritage Books, called God's Ambassadors. I really commend that to you.

So to go back to parliament then, what was this sweeping work, what did it involve?

So we talked about it involved the ordinary parish ministry throughout the kingdom. Marshall wrote that the roots of our evils is not taken away.

And he says as well, he proceeded to make plain that there remained, quote, much rubbish to be carried away.

Chris, given your language, I don't think that that would be too far for you to agree that some pulpits today have a bit of rubbish in them.

Is that fair assessment? Well, tragically, I would say most.

I'm not making that accusation to specifically our

Reformed brethren, and I'm not saying that horrific sermons don't exist among us, but when you talk about the grand scheme of things amongst the spectrum of evangelicalism,

I would say the majority is, especially what I hear and see in prominent media.

Yeah, it's true. There is this disproportionality between media or better to the quality of videography and the quality of teaching.

They don't always happen to be together. Some of the best teachers come in through audio cassette quality sound, and some of the most horrific preachers and pastors have the prime time spot.

And so when Marshall is addressing the parliamentarians and say, gentlemen, it's time for you to do your job. He says, sweep the church and the kingdom.

There is much work to be done, yet the ministry is not purged, yet the great cities and towns, many thousands of other places in the kingdom want bread for their souls, and the portions of the

Levites' honorable maintenance for them who should do the work of the Lord in many places are not yet provided.

And then he goes to that comment. Yet there remains much rubbish to be carried away, as yet the honor of the

Lord's day is not fully vindicated, as yet the Lord's temple is not builded, nor the scepter of Christ thoroughly set up.

He's really trying to lay his thick arm on them. Gentlemen, recognize the weightiness of what lies before you.

Not only is there rubbish, but there needs to be a purging. And he says, we are reminded, he says that the great cities and towns and many thousands of other places in the kingdom want bread for their souls.

What does that mean? Well, he's using the image of bread for the language of preaching. The bread of heaven, not just manna that was feeding

Israel, but the word of God. There are many pulpits that are lacking godly preachers, and our people are starving.

And so we are reminded then of the original worship wars in England. We think of the worship wars today, can we have an electric guitar, or is it only acoustic?

Do we have a full drum set with a little box that the guy sits on on the corner and taps, taps, taps? What is it that's acceptable?

In England, there was in that day a worship war. Will we worship according to the ceremonial pomp of laud or the simplicity of preaching of God's word?

And so Marshall, what he did by these words was laid in seed form.

I'm arguing he laid in seed form what the goal and duration of a long parliament would ultimately be.

So again, this long parliament was going to call the assembly, they're going to have a transformative effect on England and Scotland and even today in the assembly's product, the

Westminster Standards, they're still a blessing today, guiding churches all over the world. Marshall says that this present parliament is to all things be rightly established both in church and common law.

And so what was the chief method then of praising God in these moments? Remember this was a Thanksgiving sermon. What was the method?

Thoroughgoing reformation throughout the land. Marshall stood before the leaders of his day unabashedly, unashamedly said, you have a job to do to make

Christ king, to show his kingship. Christ is already king, but has his reign affected your heart?

Has it affected your family's heart? Has it affected the church's heart? Where it is missing, where can we shape it?

Where can we present it? Where can we celebrate it? Oh, that God would do such a work. So when

I think about his words like that, that resonates in my heart as a preacher. It resonates in my heart as a

Christian wishing and longing for a day where the name of Christ is elevated across the globe.

And so this is what he's arguing for, a thoroughgoing reformation throughout the land. He said any goal short of that would be a demonstration of ingratitude.

Again, the ingratitude concept. What's the opposite of Thanksgiving? Ingratitude. If God does something, we have to praise him.

If we don't praise him, we're ungrateful. If we're ungrateful, we will miss, and these things will be taken. And so this ingratitude for the mercies, which he says that the house of God needs to be put in order.

And so what does that include? Well, that includes the polity of the church. Marshall was seeing the abuse of that, and although he wasn't initially, from what

I can tell, someone who said that Presbyterianism is the cast me out, that's it, nothing else, there is the reality that what was going on through the

Episcopal church there and then was severe overreach. And so Marshall's work became influential.

His work before Parliament in preaching was influential. His writing, and we haven't even touched some of his other writing.

He wrote on infant baptism. He wrote against Geronimo Episcopalianism with the work of other men, and he used a pseudonym called

Smectineus, which is very difficult to say. And he had many other sermons presented before Parliament, and not all of them are published.

But here, he said very simply that the Reformation in view involved polity, involved

Parliament, it involved pulpits, it involved the people, and it was to be published throughout the land.

The church was in shambles, but only Christ can fix her, and that was his hope. That's why I love him.

Praise God. I can see why. And we have Grady in Ashboro, North Carolina, very faithful listener to this program, and also a very generous...

He says, greetings, brothers. While researching Stephen Marshall, did you find any other little -known men of his era that we should know about?

Not yet. All the men who stood out were big hitters. So when Stephen Marshall...

It's a great question, right? Because you begin to pull at the thread and see who's involved.

In terms of preachers, not yet. So when he first preached before Parliament on November 17, 1640, he did it with Cornelius Burgess, who was another member of the

Westminster Assembly. And then when he got to preach again, he worked alongside

Jeremiah Burroughs, which is just fascinating. If you're familiar with The Banner of Truth, they have so many

Jeremiah Burroughs works available, and they're certainly worth reading.

And they are available online if you want to read the Old English Versions, too, which are always absolutely fun to manage through.

But instead of finding rare characters, I found well -known characters and learned more about them.

Specifically, Jeremiah Burroughs, the very same day Marshall delivers the sermon that I've been going on and on about, he gave his own

Thanksgiving sermon before Parliament, calling for praise exactly as Marshall had. He said that praise had to be offered by the men because of what

God had done, that God's mercy alone had been taken up anew in England by their hands, and that it was up for grabs, and now they needed to do something about it, something to honor the

Lord. And his optimism, which I think is different than Marshall, it's always important to see those little differences, his optimism comes across in this way.

He says on that very same day to these same men, let not therefore our joy this day be darkened, or checked with such kind of thoughts or expressions of these.

The work is not yet done. What is done, but may be undone again. The child is not yet born.

It may be stifled in birth, but his hopefulness comes forward when he says, that which is begun will certainly go on.

God has begun a work that he will never leave till he hath brought it to perfection.

Hallelujah. By the way, I have to really endorse another book, since you mentioned

Jeremiah Burroughs. I can remember as a young Christian, my pastor at the time,

Mike Gaydosh, strongly urging me to read The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs, which is published by Banner of Truth, and it had a profound impact on my thinking, my life, my heart, and I strongly urge you to purchase this, and I would recommend, or request that you get it from CVBBS .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com, since they sponsor this program. We're going to our final break, it's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks.

If you have a question for Angelo Valley before we run out of time, send it in immediately, don't go away, we will be right back after these words from our sponsors.

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That's royaldiadem .com. We're now back with Angelo Valley and Angelo I would like you to have a few minutes of uninterrupted time to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about this important event in history featuring

Stephen Marshall. I think one of the most important things that we can draw when we consider

Stephen Marshall's Thanksgiving sermon is that this call to Thanksgiving when we consider

God's mercies his particular mercies towards us really do cause us to pause and say thank you.

I know that sounds almost simplistic right too simplistic almost even childish but one of the great horrors that we can experience with people is when we give ourselves over to them in love and sacrifice and time and effort and there's no appreciation and gratitude and so as Christians one of the things we really want to do is have our lives demonstrate our gratitude for what

God has done and his son Jesus Christ. We want to recognize his mercies and his love and his consistent care for us not only his generic providence but his special providence towards us and to really structure our lives in a manner of gratitude and revisit that question how can

I as an individual demonstrate my gratitude for what God has done? How can I as a father or a husband or if you're a wife or a mother or son or a daughter or grandparent wherever you are found at a single married wherever how can

I frame my circle in a way that honors Christ and then beyond that in the spheres of influence where God has placed me how can

I demonstrate gratitude for what he's done with my co -workers or with with my distant relatives or with with other people in the community with whom

I regularly encounter? How can I display gratitude for the work of Christ and his mercy where he's placed me?

I think once we begin to assess ourselves under those broader questions that Marshall is taking up in his day and applying to his unique particular context we find that it's as timeless as the necessity of loving

God. Praise God. We have an anonymous listener and he says

I wonder if you share with Marshall his burden to purify the church from the remnants of Romish heresy.

One of the things that saddens me greatly in this day and age and I have heard the host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Chris Arnzen state this as well is that far too many churches who claim to believe in the historical gospel of the

Reformation which we believe to be the reformation of I'm sorry which we believe to be the gospel of the scripture are compromising on the very gospel in order to be more ecumenical with Roman Catholics.

I just for the life of me cannot understand how we think that is loving when we are helping people to remain in their deception and believing in a damning and false gospel no less damning than the gospel of the

Judaizers that the Apostle Paul said was no gospel at all. What are your thoughts on this?

I'm not sympathetic with Rome you know my background my family's background is

Roman Catholic I'm Puerto Rican I was born and raised in Brooklyn and just to make it even practical when my grandmother died you know one of the things my family wanted to do was to consider me you know doing the service with a priest and doing the funeral and I said

I could not do that I can't do that in good conscience because we're preaching two very different messages two entirely different Gospels and by their kindness they allowed me to do the service myself so that's just an immediate practical example of what

I know there's no room for that we can't we can't pretend for the sake of public acceptance and niceties we deceive ourselves we deceive their congregation we deceive the community we need to stand firmly and accept where the chips lie people don't like us and that's not the most important thing we have to be faithful and that's really hard because we want to be liked nobody wants to be hated but even more than that we want to be faithful.

Amen. I have a longtime very good friend who is a Roman Catholic journalist and he always gets upset when

I point out to him that the gospel of Rome the official dogmatized gospel of Rome at Trent which is still their gospel today no matter how the liberal

Pope may have made people think it's different or whatever he gets so hurt and offended when

I say it's a false gospel it's a damning gospel and I cannot call you my brother even though I love him as a friend and even though I think that in an earthly sense he may have been and may be a far superior individual than I am in regard to being a better spouse to his wife than I was to my late wife to being a better child to his parents a better father to his children well

I don't have any children but a better father to many evangelicals children a better father than many evangelical parents

I mean a better citizen a better friend those aren't the things that are going to get you to heaven it's it's being covered with the blood of Christ and having his righteousness attributed to us and imputed to us but and I told him it is far better to hurt the feelings of a temporary heart than to be dismissive and have apathy over the never -dying soul of a friend but we are out of time and I want to make sure that our listeners have your contact information once again the website for the

Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria Pennsylvania is CRCAlexandria .org

CRCAlexandria .org I want to thank you once again Pastor Angelo for doing such a superb job on the show

I look forward to you returning as a guest I also look forward to seeing you again face to face at the

Iron Trip and Zion Radio free pastors luncheon on September 22nd I'm looking forward to it amen well thank you everybody who listened especially those who took the time to write

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater