THE PILGRIMS
The Pilgrims were Puritans, Puritans who became Pilgrims for the sake of preserving and maintaining in purity the Church of Jesus Christ. In the English speaking world, the history of rebellion against tyranny, and the history of the battle for, and the establishment, maintenance, and defense of liberty is largely the history of the Puritans and their descendants. From the Battle of Naseby to the Battle of the Boyne, from the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 to the American Revolution of 1776, the spirit of Puritanism battled tyranny. "Where the Spirit of the L o rd is, there is liberty. "

The very pilgrimage of the Pilgrims was in itself an act of rebellion and defiance against tyranny.

"Just how all the others crossed the North Sea is unknown. Bradford merely says that by various means and at different times nearly all the members of the church were able to GET AWAY from England" (emphasis added) (The Pilgrims' Faith, Peter Toon, pp. 22-24).

THE HUSSITE REBELLION
One of the earlier historical incidents of embattled Christians rising up to sweep away temporal and ecclesiastical tyranny, and establishing civil and religious liberty by force of arms, is found in the Bohemian rebellion of the 15th century. For sheer fascination and readability, little can compare with tales of the Taborite wars. (See Gillett's The Life and Times of John Huss, Vol. 2.). A one-eyed (later totally blind) general named Zisca rallies the patriots and infuses them with religious fervor. Lacking a castle, he fortifies a mountaintop and calls it Mt. Tabor. There from all over the nation, men (and entire families) flock to his standards. There they share the communion of the Lord's table, there they are disciplined by the word of God, and there they are disciplined and drilled for military and spiritual warfare. From there, they sally forth, a God-fearing, terrible, and invincible host, to successively defeat and rout every imperial army and every papal crusade raised up against them.

Yet it is not their sacrifices and their valor, but the underlying faith that compels us to examine their deeds. What God did through them might speak volumes to us. All this had not been preceded by anarchy, sedition and licentiousness. On the contrary, it had been preceded by the preaching and teaching of Huss and Jerome. Reformation had come to Bohemia, and Christ had set men free. A whole nation had been transformed, a whole nation was united in truth, and a whole nation was set for the defense of its faith. Catholicism was nearly extinct in Bohemia. A whole nation had tasted liberty, and echoed with the Apostle Paul, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." Such men could not be chained by tyranny of Pope or emperor, so they fought, and history has rarely seen their equal. They sung their hymns in battle and psalms in victory, while the reputation of their terrible ferocity and their invincible valor defeated the foe long before the clash of arms. As Gillett describes, "Each soldier was a hero. He was ready to be a martyr. He was a champion of his faith; and his firm belief was, that in pouring out his blood, and laying down his life, he was rendering but a poor and unworthy tribute to that 'truth of God' in defense of which it was an honor to die. " Mt. Tabor became their Mecca, a veritable Jerusalem. There Zisca rallied his troops, there they were inspired by the pure word of God, there the preachers exhorted them to "war against Antichrist." There they were fed and renewed in their souls, there the Spirit of the Lord breathed upon them, there they were united by communion into a single spiritual force and there the reformation proceeded till it paralleled that of the Puritans two centuries later. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

However, as is ever the case, though invincible from without, they were conquered from within. The victorious nation, left to itself, slowly but inexorably developed into two irreconcilable camps. On the one hand was Zisca and his puritanical Taborites, invincible in battle, thorough in reformation, unwilling to compromise, unwilling to submit to anything less than the word of God, and committed to overthrowing the tyrant and establishing a Christian Republic. On the other hand were the Calixtines, less militant in battle, partial in their reformation, ready to negotiate, and willing to compromise. For a few basic concessions, primarily their celebrated four points, the Calixtines were willing to return to the fleshpots of Egypt and to resubmit to the yoke of Emperor and Pope. It was the Calixtines, those New Evangelicals of the 15th century, who turned to the persecution of their Taborite brethren to expedite their negotiations and win the favor of their enemies, especially the Pope. It was their spiritual treason that divided the nation and decided its fate. Their treason paved the way for the eventual conquest of the nation, the extinction of its liberties, and the entire devastation of the Bohemian nation, people, and culture.

However, as he did with countless martyrs that have gone before, God was pleased to preserve and use the spiritual seed planted in the Bohemian Reformation. The persecuted and dispersed Taborites became the Moravians, who later so profoundly influenced John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Yet how many Methodists today are willing to take up the sword to defend their heritage of ancient Taborite faith? Today, most Methodists acquiesce to, or actively promote, the totalitarianism and anti-Christianity of communism rather than resist it to the death. Today, the treason of those who profess Christ is again paving the way for tyranny by its betrayal of those who would follow in the steps of Zisca and his Taborites.

THE HUGUENOTS
The history of the Huguenots can be traced back to the 12th century Vaudois that dwelt in southern France. These pure, simple, and virtuous Christians, early Protestants, whose influence was later to produce Wycliffe, the "Morning Star" of the English reformation, have long since been exonerated from the charges leveled against them that they were seriously tainted with heresy. Their resistance to a Papal Crusade that threatened to exterminate their unfettered faith which refused to bow the neck to Romish idolatry and temporal tyranny is an inspiring tragedy from which we have much to learn.

Both Count Raymond of Toulouse and his nephew, Viscount Raymond Roger, the rulers of the threatened provinces, though Catholic in faith, determined to do their duty and protect the lives, liberties, and property of their citizens from the scourge of a Papal Crusade recruited from the dregs and bandits of Europe with all the wanton rapine, plunder, carnage, and murder reminiscent reminiscent of Attila the Hun. However, on the eve of battle, as the Papal juggernaut approached with all its attendant horror and destruction, Count Raymond lost his courage.

"Not so the heroic nephew, noblest of a noble band of martyrs. Perceiving. . . that nothing was to be expected from negotiation, and determined never peacefully to admit the crusaders into his states to ravage his clients, he boldly urged upon his uncle to place strong garrisons in the larger towns, to prepare valiantly for the defence of their country, and to take the initiative by at once commencing the campaign before the invading host could don its mail or draw its sword" (A History of the Huguenots, W. Carlos Martyn, pp. 67).

In the aftermath of this sorry tragedy, the Vaudois were all but exterminated. While the Pope deceived and dissembled with Count Raymond that he might conquer the country piecemeal, instructing his papal legate thus, "We counsel you, with the apostle Paul, to employ guile with regard to this same count. . . employing towards him a wise dissimulation, that thus the other heretics may be more easily defeated, and that afterwards we may crush him when he shall be left alone" (A History of the Huguenots, W. Carlos Martyn, pp. 69), Raymond Roger fought till his back was to the wall. Then, solely for the sake of his beleaguered subjects, he accepted an offer to negotiate, and was ensnared by treacherous cunning and murdered in prison, the victim of a violated "safe conduct" signed and sealed by Rome. Count Raymond fared little better and died a defeated man, his lands wasted, his provinces pillaged, and his subjects decimated.

How different history might have read if uncle and nephew had united to successfully defend the faith and the liberties of their subjects. How differently history might have read had the Christian faith been allowed to flourish 300 years before the Monk of Wittenberg nailed his 95 theses to the church door. How differently might the history of France read if she had been the cradle and fountainhead of reformation. The horrors of 1789 were the logical fruit of that darkness that refused to tolerate the light of day. However, the tragedy of the Vaudois was ever the tragedy of French Protestantism. While battle summoned the Vaudois to victory, they were undone by the temporizing and fruitless negotiating of Count Raymond, and so it was with the Huguenots. Ever victorious and ever defeated, valorous on the field of battle and seduced at the negotiating table. They lacked the militancy that might have carried them to triumph. Time and time again, the arms of Conde, Coligny, and the Chatillons prevailed and earned for the Huguenots their rights and liberties, and time and time again, when they could have dictated the peace on the terms of God's word, they submitted to the truces and promises of rulers whose plighted word was but made to be broken. An ill-timed, inordinate love of peace, an inordinate faith in princes, and an ill-timed forgetfulness of Elisha's advice in II Kings 13:19, combined to be the undoing of the Huguenots, till they were eventually swept away by the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and buried by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

JOHN KNOX
John Knox was one of the most fascinating characters and one of the most militant Protestants to ever grace this earth. He was another product of Calvin's Geneva, which Knox, himself, termed "the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the Apostles." Knox was a Calvinist, and Calvinism has ever been the foundation of liberty and the nemesis of tyranny. As Bancroft puts it, "The fanatic for Calvinism was a fanatic for liberty, for in the moral warfare for freedom, his creed was a part of his army, and his most faithful ally in the battle" (History Of The United States, Bancroft, Vol. I, p. 464). Or as Groen van Prinsteren stated, "In Calvinism lies the origin and guarantee of our constitutional liberties," (Lectures on Calvinism, Kuyper, p. 78), and as Martyn expresses it, "As soon as Guy de Bres and many other fiery scholars returned from Geneva to the Low Countries, the momentous contest between the rights of the people and the revolutionary and bloody despotism of Philip // of Spain began; heroic struggles took place, and the creation of the republic of the United Nether/ands was their glorious termination" (See The Rise of The Dutch Republic, Motley, 3 vol.).

"When John Knox returned to his native Scotland from Geneva,. . . then popery, arbitrary power and the exotic immorality of the French Court, imported by Queen Mary Stuart, made way . . . for the pure enthusiasm which bred Christian liberty and civilization" (A History of the Huguenots, W. Carlos Martyn, p. 180).

Knox was schooled well and he was schooled hard. Converted from the priesthood, he became a follower of George Wishart, that earnest and early preacher and champion of Protestantism in Scotland. After an attempt was made on Wishart's life, he was protected in his public preaching by a bodyguard carrying a large two-handed sword. To Knox fell this privileged position, and he held the sword till one afternoon Wishart, sensing his impending doom, sent Knox home with the exhortation, "One is enough for a sacrifice." Wishart was seized next day, and later his strangled body was publicly burned. Three months later, a band of Protestants avenged Wishart and killed Cardinal Beaton, the perpetrator of the "Scottish Inquisition," and seized St. Andrew's castle. Knox, himself persecuted, joined this band of zealots and became their preacher till the castle was taken and Knox became a French galley slave chained to an oar. Knox was schooled hard, and for the rest of his life, he was to be consistently branded as a rebel and a seditionary. Yet he was God's instrument for the reformation of his country, and within two years, God freed him from the galleys to continue the work he was being called and prepared to do. That Knox earned his reputation is undoubtedly true, and his whole ministry breathed out forceful resistance to tyranny and the overthrow of despots, whether on the pontifical or temporal throne. In a typical letter, this time to the Catholic Clergy, Knox thundered, "'To the generation of anti-Christ, the pestilent prelates and their shavelings within Scotland, the congregation of Jesus within the same saith.' The congregation of Jesus complained of the Papist's cruelty, and warned them that if it continued they would be arrested as murderers. 'Yea,' the brethren said, 'we shall begin that same war which God commanded Israel to execute against the Canaanites, that is, contract of peace shall never be made till ye desist from your open idolatry and cruel persecution of God's children' " (John Knox: Portrait of a Calvinist by E. Muir). (Muir is not a friendly biographer but he ferrets out for criticism those militant aspects of Knox that inspire embattled Christians today.)

It is impossible for Christians today to imagine the times and the circumstances in which Knox lived. We can only admire the hardened and tempered instrument that God forged to be his prophet to that generation. Like Elijah, Knox could boldly rebuke a monarch on her throne, face to face, as he did to Mary Stuart. He could publicly pray and plead that God would raise up an Ehud or a Jehu to rid England of its tyrant (Bloody Mary), who was even then burning at the stake all professors of the true faith. His preaching precipitated the insurrection that liberated Scotland and established it in the reformed faith. Such was the apostle from Geneva. Such was the man who rose from a galley slave to graduate from "the most perfect school of Christ . . . since the days of the Apostles." Such was the man who was the founder of his nation and the author of their liberties. Today, Christianity faces a more imminent peril, a greater threat, a darker tyranny than in those perilous times. May God raise up men again, forged by the Holy Spirit, and equal to the hour.

THE GREAT OLIVER
Oliver Cromwell, the great Puritan, the greatest Puritan general, the Lord Protector of the Puritan Commonwealth, must be ranked as one of the greatest men in history. He stands with Zisca, William of Orange, and George Washington, as a great champion of Christian liberty. Despised as a "sectarian" in a day and age when ALL faiths were wont to persecute dissidents, despised as an "Independent" in a day and age of "State Churches," Cromwell was ever the champion of toleration, of freedom of religion, of liberty of conscience. Although Cromwell was one of the greatest military minds of his age, although he was the Lord General of an undefeated army and the Lord Protector of a feared and respected commonwealth, ("Mazarin prized Cromwell's alliance; he was aware of the jealous care with which the mighty Protector guarded the interests of menaced Protestantism. The Duke of Savoy had ventured to persecute the feeble remnant of the primitive Waldenses .... and all Europe saw Cromwell's powerful arm stretch across the channel and across the Alps to snatch the Vaudois from the greedy maw of the Savoyard" From A History of the Huguenots, W. Carlos Martyn, p. 193.) yet the secret of his strength lay elsewhere. As Scripture saith, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city" (Prov. 16:32). Hostile biographers to the contrary, Cromwell was disciplined, one of the most self-disciplined heroes of history. He ruled his spirit and he ruled it by the will and the word and the law of God. A Iamb where his own person was concerned he was a lion where the cause of God and liberty were at stake. With perfect self control and total indifference, he could weather storms of personal abuse, criticism, and insults, yet with utter fearlessness and disregard for all personal consequences, he could stand up in parliament and denounce his commanding general for tolerating profanity and looseness amongst the officers. He could single handedly charge a troop of mutinous soldiers with drawn sword and compel them to submit by the sheer force of his indomitable courage, or he could call a disaffected and factionous army to prayer, preach to them as private Christians, and heal their wounds and bind up their unity by godly communion and righteous exhortations till to a man, they wept in simple, humble piety. His letters, too, were filled with expressions of faith, devotion, piety, and quotations from Scripture. Steeped in the Scriptures, he relived in himself the lives of Joshua and Gideon. He saw in his men "the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof." Such was the Puritan conqueror and such was his invincible strength.

Such, too, was the strength of his army. The strength of the Puritan hosts was their moral strength. Their strength was in their faith and in the arm of the Almighty. Godliness was the chief requirement for fighting under the banner of the Great Oliver.

"These principles are unusual in the history of wars. The demand of most generals is for men, it matters not what kind of men so that they be able to march and carry guns. Bu t Cromwell would have none but those he delighted to describe as 'God-fearing' and 'sober.' This was the secret of his success and all the fruits of his wars sprang from his knowledge of men and his power to ennoble whole regiments by stamping his own character upon them" (Oliver Cromwell, A History: Church, p. 193).

I n war or in peace, there has not been an army like them since Joshua took the "Promised Land."

"Those Puritan hosts performed every action in the name of God. When they were not fighting they were either preaching or reading, and expounding the Scriptures. Conversation was often carried on in Biblical phrases. Every argument was clinched with a text from the sacred book. The private soldiers, disciplined to perfect obedience in the drill or on the field, forgot their subordination in the relaxed freedom of the camp, and often lectured their officers fiercely when they had drawn the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Agag, the hated Amalekite King, was the name by which they referred to Charles . . . . The popish soldiers were led by the priests of Baal. They would overcome their foes at Armageddon .... Then would peace come to Shiloh" (Cromwell, p. 232).

In battle these men knew how to "pray without ceasing."

"The hoarse commands directing the formation of battle were frequently interrupted by the fierce exhortations of the preachers, or the shout of psalms proclaiming the glory of the Lord, and the word that was given to the soldiers to inspire them in the approaching conflict was, 'God and our Cause!"' (Cromwell, p. 215).

"Then came a shout from the Puritans, 'God our Strength' and the battle was on" (Cromwell, p. 241).

"But when Oliver led his men, a new inspiration seized them. Shouting their psalms, they rushed to victory, and literally pushed the Royalists off the field" (Cromwell, p. 242).

Neither was Cromwell afflicted with that temporizing weakness and lack of militant zeal that was the undoing of the Huguenots. There was not an ounce of weakness, inconsistency or pacifism in this most militant of God's warriors.

"Cromwell had felt from the first that the war should be sharp and short. No terms with the King should be proposed or thought of until he had been thoroughly conquered in the field. Victory first, by arms, for to arms they had appealed; then a settlement founded upon genuine reforms in religious worship, and due safeguards for good government in the future; together with a general amnesty and a healing of sores" (Oliver Cromwell, His Life and Character: Paterson, p. 55).

Cromwell displayed the same militant zeal for the destruction of God's enemies that caused Joshua to pray, "Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon . . . until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies."

"Then was seen the difference of Cromwell's behavior on the field from that of most of the Parliament commanders of that day. It had been their custom to pause and let the enemy retreat in fair order. That was not Cromwell's way. His men were weary, and he, himself, must have been sore and tired enough; but as soon as he saw the advantage gained, he determined to follow it up. Hour after hour, he held his men to the pursuit. Every troop that tried to rally was crushed or cut down . . . it was Cromwell's example which turned a mere victory of arms into a virtual annihilation of the enemy" (Cromwell, His Life and Character,).

Cromwell's finest hour, the fortitude of his faith and the reality of the Lord's deliverance are all best exemplified by the battle of Dunbar.

' As Oliver, with an uncomfortable sense of being in full retreat, passed through these hills, Leslie, leading an army of twenty-three thousand men, followed him and blocked up the passes. On one side of the Parliamentary host was the sea, on the other side a range of unscalable hills and a hostile army. The ground on which they had set their tents was marked with splashes of water and rough bent grass. It was no suitable place for a fight. The Roundheads were in a trap. "For the first time in his life Cromwell was in despair. His men now numbered scarce eleven thousand, and they were all conscious of the grave peril of their situation. Cromwell standing for the first time in the presence of palpable defeat, wrote the following letter. . . plainly intimating his expectation of the annihilation of his command" (Oliver Cromwell, A History: Church, p. 360).

Yet in the letter, his faith never wavering, Cromwell could write, "But the only wise God knows what is best. All shall work for good. Our spirits are comfortable, praised be the Lord,-though our present condition be as it is. And indeed we have much hope in the Lord; of whose mercy we have had large experience" (Cromwell, A History: Church, p. 360).

We can only marvel at the immediacy of the Lord's answer to such faith. "But before Cromwell had dispatched his letter. . . Leslie brought his troops down to the foot of the hills and placed them in such a position that the practiced eye of the Puritan leader joyfully discerned that there was still a chance for victory" (Cromwell, A History: Church, p. 361).

Never was the Lord's deliverance clearer as when Oliver led his men shouting, "Let God arise! Let his enemies be scattered!" (Cromwell, A History: Church, p. 362) amidst the Puritan battle cries of "The Lord of Hosts" and the 1 17th Psalm. The signal victory that history records for Cromwell that day was both the hand of God and the fruit of faith.

When the Lord Protector died, the liberties of England died with him. When Cromwell died, a nation lost its bulwark against tyranny, and the triumph of absolute government and religious repression became inevitable. Within twenty months of his death, the Restoration of 1660 placed the House of Stuart back on the throne of England. However, the spirit of the Great Oliver lived on, as men relearned the lessons of history, till liberty was again vindicated. In the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, the Puritans rose once more to overthrow tyranny, to forever establish the liberties of England, and to vindicate the greatest Puritan of them all.

CONCLUSION
Space has run out for this issue of "The Pilgrim," but the history of Christians battling for liberty is inexhaustible. From Abraham's deliverance of Lot to Ian Smith's "Declaration of Unilateral Independence" in Rhodesia, liberty is the irrepressible fruit of the Christian faith. The argument from history that Christians have always battled despotism and absolutism and have always overthrown tyranny is unanswerable.

Christians of Holland, England, and America seem to forget that they owe their liberties to historic events that can only be described by such terms as civil war, insurrection, rebellion, and revolution. They also seem to forget that religious "REFORMATION" was both the foundation and the catalyst for all those events. For Christians in this apostate hour, to breathe the free air won by the bloody sacrifices of the "militant spirits" of a bygone Christian era, and scornfully and piously to intone the platitudes of pacifism and nonresistance, is the rankest form of that most despicable of sins: HYPOCRISY!

Let us, remembering the lessons of history, thank God for our Christian forefathers, let us honor their memory, let us honor their faith, faith in him who said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," and let us, too, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. " AMEN!