World History, Chapter Twenty One

World History – Chapter Twenty One

The Struggle for Mastery of the World and the rise of Napoleon
1700 to 1800

Jamestown, the beginning of the Old Dominion State of Virginia, we are told by Samuel Eliot Morison in The Oxford History of the American People, was founded in 1607 under the authority of King James I at the same time that the French trading post of Port Royal, Nova Scotia was being virtually abandoned. Champlain, in 1608, then began under the Rock of Quebec on the St. Lawrence River; the first French post in the Americas destined to be an important city. In 1609, Henry Hudson sailed the Hudson River in New York, the first time for any European since Verrazano in 1524, in the Dutch vessel ‘The Half Moon’, ushering in the short lived Dutch Empire in the Americas. The English and the French had the most lasting empires next to Spain in this part of the world.

In 1620, a band of self named Pilgrims landed on the shores of a part of Virginia which had just been renamed New England. Their colony was known as New Plymouth and was the second focal point of the English American Empire. A third was established in 1625 on the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts. Port Royal, for the French, was revitalized by a lady in waiting to the Queen of France, Madame de Guercheville, who paid the bills to reoccupy the post. Her employees also set up a missionary station at Mount Desert in the present day State of Maine in 1613 which was wiped out by an expedition from Virginia under a Captain Argall. He then enforced the same punishment on Port Royal to let the French know that the continent truly belonged to England. In the St. Lawrence River valley the French and the Dutch had already taken sides in the conflicts between the Iroquois and the Huron Indians and the King of Spain was close to attacking Jamestown.

The four prominent European nations that claimed territory in the Americas were constantly fighting over their claims. With the loss of the Roanoke Colony the English had learned that founding a colony was expensive business. Sir Walter Raleigh had lost a large fortune in his colonizing efforts. The first twelve of the English colonies and all English island colonies except Jamaica had been founded by private companies with them starting as trading posts and colonized by employees. The first English colony to be purely agricultural from the beginning was Bermuda in 1612 as there were no natives to trade with other than a few hogs left by the Spanish. Since this is not a course on American History I am narrowing our focus down to the geopolitical implications of the American colonies. England considered itself overpopulated, wanted a market for its woolen manufactures, needed precious metals like gold, wanted to produce commodities like olive oil and wine which until now it had to buy at great cost, wanted a short route to the Indies; India and China, and wanted to propagate Protestant Christianity and keep the Roman Catholic Church from proselytizing the entire population of North America.

It was understood that any English settlement had to have English law and English liberty, Morison tells us. The first charter of the Virginia Company declared that the


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colonists and all of their descendants would have all liberties afforded to an Englishman. These became fighting words in the 1770’s.

Back in Europe, between 1698 and 1699, Peter I of Russia and Augustus II of Poland who was also Elector of Saxony, joined Frederick IV of Denmark in a secret alliance against Sweden who was in control of the Baltic Sea region. The resultant war is called the Great Northern War and lasted from 1700 until 1721 when it was ended by the Treaty of Nystad having Russia supplant Sweden as the Baltic’s dominant power and making Russia a major European power.

With the last Spanish Habsburg king, Charles II, childless, there was a war over who would rule Spain with French interests speaking loudly. The War of the Spanish Succession began in 1701 with France occupying forts in the Spanish Netherlands resulting in several powers joining for war. This conflict lasted until 1715 and was concluded with the Treaty of Madrid. The English forces that led the allies against France were led by John Churchill, to become First Duke of Marlborough, ancestor of Winston Churchill, and considered to be Britain’s greatest military genius for his actions during this war that saw England, the Netherlands, Austria, Prussia, most of the German states, and Portugal line up against Savoy, Mantua, Cologne, and Bavaria under the leadership of France. Eventually Savoy switched sides. It has been said that Churchill never lost a battle.

When Louis XIV of France died in 1715, his grandson, Philip of Spain, the uncle of Louis XV, wanted to be king of France also. England, again, was opposed to any union between France and Spain. Thus began the War of the Quadruple Alliance between 1718 and 1720, as most other wars in Europe, consisting of forces of one relative fighting against the forces of another relative by marriage or birth. England and the Netherlands lined up against France and Spain ending in the Treaty of the Hague in 1720 and not a lot being settled but the balance of power in Europe being maintained with France the superpower and England and the Netherlands with their allies keeping them in some kind of check.

In Poland, the death of Augustus II saw the beginning of the War of the Polish Succession, lasting for five years between 1733 and 1738 with Russia invading Poland. The Treaty of Vienna in 1738 which resulted in Poland’s king abdicating and several rulers swapping territory like pieces on a game board.

The Austro-Russian-Turkish War of 1736, an outgrowth of the War of the Polish Succession, lasted for three years until the Treaty of Nissa in 1739 forced the Russians to make peace with Turkey and abandon hopes of building a navy on the Black Sea.

With the death of Emperor Joseph I, there was a War of the Austrian Succession between 1740 and 1748, with several rival claimants to the throne, and at least one of them, Archduke Charles IV of Austria, having been involved in the War of the Spanish

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succession as a claimant for the throne of that country. Maria Theresa inherited the Habsburg Empire upon the death of Charles IV. Frederick II of Prussia got involved on her behalf but wanted Silesia in return. She refused and the side war called the First Silesian War took place between 1740 and 1742. After the brief interval of the Second Silesian War, at the Treaty of Dresden, Prussia was victorious and Maria Theresa honored Frederick’s claim to Silesia and the election of her husband as emperor. Once again, France and England squared off as allies of opposing sides with France and Prussia being together. These two Silesian Wars were intertwined with the War of the Austrian Succession. Finally, this round of hostilities in Europe ended inconclusively in 1748.

To interject my own personal comments here plainly; I believe that on the political front, Satan’s main efforts have been to work toward lining up one worldwide government standing opposed to God in the last days as his efforts in the religious sphere is to align mankind up under one worldwide religion opposed to God. This, of course, is all done, convincing mankind that he and she are moving toward a better world by this union in order to stop war, poverty, injustice, and religious bigotry and finally doing what God really wants for mankind. To me, history has been very clear on these points.

That being said, back in Great Britain (James I term for Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland) in 1699 Parliament enacted the Disbanding Act, limiting involvement of their king, William II, in European wars and reducing the standing army to 7,000 men. The Act of Settlement followed in 1701 made all future kings Protestant by law and were not to leave the country without parliament’s permission. They could not engage England in war for defense of their foreign possessions and could not grant office to foreigners. The act asserted the right of ministers to be held responsible for the actions of the king. Imagine holding the president’s cabinet responsible for his actions legally. In 1701, James II had died in France and someone named James Edward, a Stuart, called the “Old Pretender” assumed the throne, recognized by Louis XIV of France. He never actually ruled England and his efforts to assume control with French help failed. Queen Anne, reigning from 1702 to 1714, was the last Stuart to reign over England with James I being the first.

There was a rebellion in Scotland called “The Forty Five” between 1745 and 1746, when the “Old Pretender’s” son, Charles Edward Stuart aka “Bonnie Prince Charlie” or the “Young Pretender” raised an army of 2,000 and marched on Edinburgh, capturing it. He then attempted to invade England. This Jacobite Rebellion, named so for things to do with James I (Stuart) of England was called Jacobite as James is the English version of the Hebrew name Jacob. It ended with the historic and disastrous (for the Scots) Battle of Culloden in 1746.

As I pointed out before, England was involved in both the War of the Austrian Succession and the War of the Spanish Succession against France.



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Italy continued to be a battleground for its more powerful neighbors in the 18th century, or 1700’s, with every war seeming to include some bloodshed on that peninsula.

While the Turkish Ottoman Empire fought with various European powers, Persia, modern day Iran, went through some warring up and downs of its own. It nearly collapsed in the early 18th century, being invaded by Afghanistan and losing some its provinces to Russia and Turkey. Persia’s fortunes were revived under one of the greatest soldiers in its history, Nadir Kuli Beg, or Nadir Shah. He is considered the last great Asian conqueror, driving out the Afghan’s, defeating the Turks several times, defeating the Russians, and conquering Mogul India. His empire collapsed at his death in 1747.

As part of the War of the Austrian Succession, the First Carnatic War between 1744 and 1748, and the Second Carnatic War between 1749 and 1754, saw the French East India Company and the British East India Company fighting for control of India, using the armies and navies of their governments, whose fortunes were linked with them, to fight each other.

In Africa, this is the period of the domination of the Lunda Kingdom located in northeastern Angola and in what was to become Zaire. The Ashanti kingdom saw unrest over the succession of to the throne after the death of its great king, Osei Tutu. Between 1712 and 1755 Mamari Kulibali of the Segu Kingdom, known as “The Commander”, created a professional army and navy, capturing Timbuktu and defeating an attempted invasion by the King of Kongo. In order to ensure access to European weapons, King Agaja of Abomey conquered other kingdoms on the Guinea (a European word for Africa) Coast and created the Dahomey Kingdom. The Dahomey fought wars with the rich Oyo Kingdom which they lost on two occasions. All of these African kingdoms were growing rich on the slave trade which was prospering, sending millions of prisoners of war and conquest to the “New World”. While the older empires had grown rich over the gold trade which had been displaced by the focus on gold from the Americas these 18th century kingdoms were getting rich on human traffic.

Around 1700, the Masai, a cattle herding people, began moving into Kenya on the east coast of Africa. The Portuguese involved themselves in brief alliances with petty kingdoms to gain influence. The Dutch Boers began moving north from the southern coast of Africa as Bantu peoples moved south.

In the America’s, the American version of the War of the Spanish Succession was called Queen Anne’s War, fought from 1702 to 1713. The American version of the War of the Austrian Succession was called King George’s War and was fought between 1740 and 1748. In Latin America the War of the Quadruple Alliance saw conflict between the French and the Spanish in Florida and Texas for two years until 1720. Paraguay rebelled against Spain between 1721 and 1725 when the governor of Asuncion refused to accept the new governor sent from Lima and ousted the Jesuits for interfering in his rule. The rebellion was finally crushed. The Araucanian Indians tried to oust the Spaniards from

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Southern Chile and failed as well. Venezuela saw a failed uprising in 1749 and the Spanish and Portuguese, as part of the War of the Polish Succession, fought over their possessions in Latin America, particularly in Uruguay. The American colonies were constantly torn by their master’s disputes in Europe. This was a source of irritation for English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish speaking colonists who were increasingly feeling a sense of identity, if not apart from their European masters at least, often in equality to their European overlords although a great many colonists would always feel loyalty to their European sovereigns first and foremost.

Great improvements in weaponry saw the latter half of the 18th century display the brilliance in bloodshed of four great captains of war; Frederick II of Prussia called Frederick the Great, George Washington in America who managed to lose almost every battle and yet win his war, Napoleon Bonaparte whose star began to rise, and Horatio Nelson whose command of the ocean for Great Britain would shatter all old naval tactics. George Washington is usually discounted as being a brilliant commander but many military historians applaud the way he persevered against great odds to achieve ultimate success.

There were three great wars of this period between 1750 and 1800; the Seven Year’s War between 1756 and 1763, the American Revolution between 1775 and 1783, and the French Revolutionary Wars between 1791 and 1800. The entire world was in the grip of war at some point with the result being the French colonial Empires in America and India being destroyed and a worldwide British empire being firmly established, and the United States of America coming into being. Strangely, the end of the period did see France, defeated elsewhere, to be the dominant power in Europe on land.

William Pitt the elder, war minister for England during the Seven Years War with the French, was one of those far sighted men who saw the need for Britain to have a strong navy.

The Seven Years War saw the Holy Roman Empire (Austria), France, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony (alarmed by the growing power of Prussia) join in a coalition against Prussia under Frederick. England allied with Prussia, already being in almost constant hostility with France. The Treaty of Paris closed the hostilities with France renouncing its claims to Canada. The French Canadians around eastern Quebec were called Acadians. Many expelled by the British moved to Louisiana and their name became corrupted from Acadian to Cajun, a term used today. The poem, Evangeline, is a tragedy written by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, about a young Acadian’s attempt to reunite with her love.

Also at the Treaty of Paris, Spain traded Florida to England for the return of captured Havana, Cuba. At the Treaty of San Lidefonso on November 3, 1762 (there were three such named treaties in the 18th century) as compensation for allying with France, Spain had received all of France’s land west of the Mississippi river. This, later, would be


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purchased by Thomas Jefferson from France and is called the Louisiana Purchase. How France got it back comes later.

The Wars of the French Revolution resulted from the growing violence and tyranny of the French revolutionary movement that we have already mentioned and the efforts of other European kings to restore King Louis XVI to his throne. This was called the War of the First Coalition and lasted from 1792 to 1798. Unfortunately, for Louis XVI, to keep him from being restored to the throne, this meant his beheading in 1793 along with his queen, Marie Antoinette. France was now at war with virtually the entire world, as far as Europe was concerned. A national draft was imposed, Belgium was annexed, and the country invaded the Netherlands. Also, in 1793, a Reign of Terror under Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee for Public Safety began. France neared collapse. The entire male population of France was drafted. By sheer weight of numbers the French had some success in repulsing the armies of its enemies and former friends. The French fleet which had helped the Americans to victory by its mere presence was defeated by the British under Admiral Hood.

However, the French continued to be successful on land and in 1795 the government was replaced by the Directory, a 5 man committee. General Napoleon Bonaparte, who started out as a second lieutenant of artillery, rose to prominence with his military command and defeated all comers, using military genius and strict discipline of those he commanded to wield the French into a formidable fighting force. He ruled France as the First Consul of the French Republic in 1799 but then after failed plot to kill him which he used as an excuse to restore the hereditary monarchy of France, had himself declared Napoleon I, Emperor of France, in 1804, and unlike Charlemagne, he took the crown from the Pope’s hands and crowned himself; some saying this was his refusal to acknowledge the Pope’s supremacy while others say it was planned in advance by all parties. He crowned his wife, Josephine, as empress.

Napoleon was at constant odds with Pope Pius VII, who desperately wanted the return of the Papal States the Papacy once controlled and lands in Germany that he had lost to German princes who had seized them and that had been lost by treaties. Eventually, Napoleon would be excommunicated when he conquered the Papal States in 1808 (France had conquered them previously in the 1790’s but restored them to the Papacy in 1800) and annexed them to France. The Pope was then kidnapped although some say not by Napoleon’s orders. Nevertheless, Napoleon did not offer his release and he remained in confinement for six years being pressured to give up his power altogether or to sign a concordat with Napoleon. He was restored in 1814 by the British as they chased Napoleon down. He then asked for better treatment of the former emperor, exiled on St. Helena Island after being defeated for the last time at the Battle of Waterloo, having escaped from his exile on the island of Elba and governing France for 100 days.

Between 1768 and 1774, Turkey fought a war against Catherine the Great of Russia, declaring war on Russia after Poland appealed to Turkey for help fighting a Russian

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invasion. This war was settled by the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji in 1774 which saw both sides surrender territory and make promises to each other that would be hard to monitor. There was a second war against Catherine of Russia between 1787 and 1792 which Russia started and which ended in the Treaty of Jassy resulting in Russia returning some conquered territory.

Persia had a succession struggle after Nadir Shah’s death and was split between three rivals until Karim Khan took over the entire country. Upon Karim Khan’s death in 1779 there was a civil war precipitated by the eunuch general Agha Mohammed against the Khan’s successors. His own reign from 1794 to 1797 was known as a brutal and cruel one. After his assassination in 1797, the new Shah, Fath Ali, was incited by the British to invade Afghanistan, a disaster for both countries.

India was being squeezed by four European countries for all they could get but Portugal’s influence was limited to Goa, Diu, and Daman. The Dutch influence was dying out and only England and France fought for control of India’s vast resources. The French version of the British East India Company was the Compagnie des Indies. The British East India Company had the power of a sovereign state including the making of war and peace with any non-Christian nation. It had its own army under English commanders being manned by regular English army troops and mercenaries. The 1757 Battle of Plassey in which the clerk turned soldier, Robert Clive, defeated a superior force of French led native Indian troops was a decisive one in their struggle for control which fell to the British after the Fourth Mysore War ended in 1799.

Burma, the Southeast Asian country now known as Myanmar, saw its greatest glory in these years when it defeated a Chinese army which had invaded in 1769 and forced it to surrender. Siam, now Thailand, saw King Rama I found the modern city of Bangkok during his reign from 1782 to 1809.

China’s Manchu Empire reached its greatest height of power and size under the Emperor Ch’ien Lung (aka Kao Tsung) between 1736 and 1796, tightening control of Central Asia and invading Tibet in 1751, a country which had been under nominal control since 1662. The Dalai Lama was forced to submit to Chinese authority. Between 1755 and 1760 Vietnam invaded Cambodia but then went through a protracted and long civil war until 1801.

In North America, the Seven Years War played out as the French and Indian War, between 1754 and 1763. Before the American Revolution which resulted not so much from the American colonists revolting against British rule, at least at first, as against King George III’s taking away some of the self-government that the Americans had long enjoyed, Pontiac’s rebellion against British control opened up some of the hostilities. Chief of the Ottawa tribe, he attacked Detroit (now Detroit, Michigan) unsuccessfully and then destroyed every British fort west of Niagara except Fort Pitt (modern day


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Pittsburgh). He was defeated at the Battle of Bushy Run by a British force that marched from Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

The violence and unrest in the American colonies continued with the Yankee-Pennamite Wars in the Wyoming Valley of the Susquehanna River between Connecticut and Pennsylvania settlers over Connecticut’s claim of dominion from “sea to sea”. Connecticut drafted so many settlers for the Revolutionary War later that the settlements fell easy prey to British Loyalist forces called Tories, from New York, and a bloody massacre called the Wyoming Valley Massacre took place. The Yankee-Pennamite Wars began in 1769 and continued right up until 1807 when they were ended by an uneasy truce. Events such as the famed “Boston Massacre” and the “Boston Tea Party” caused Parliament to put Boston under military control resulting in the First Continental Congress meeting in 1774 in Philadelphia.

There was an uprising in North Carolina by settlers calling themselves “Regulators” against British control in 1771. Then, in 1774, Lord Dunmore’s War against the Shawnee Indians led to further bloodshed. With the accepted beginning of hostilities at Lexington and Concord in 1775 the War of the American Revolution saw England lose its most valuable colonies in North America, keeping only Canada (no offense meant, Canadians), after Britain sued for peace in 1782 and the Treaty of Paris took place on November 30 of that year. In September of that year, a joint Franco-Spanish force laid siege to the British outpost of Gibraltar on Spain’s southern tip, controlling the entrance to the Mediterranean, for three years. Hostilities between England and the Franco-Spanish alliance were temporarily ended by the Treaty of Versailles in 1783.

The fledgling country, the United States of America, fought desperate battles with Native American Indians resulting in disastrous defeats and massacres for them. President Washington called General “Mad” Anthony Wayne out of retirement to defeat the Maumee Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers near present day Toledo, Ohio. Being dragged into the Wars of the French Revolution resulted in a sort of war with France with America being successful. Latin America saw Spain take advantage of the British troubles with her American colonists by seizing Pensacola, Florida and the Bahamas. The Treaty of Versailles gave Florida to Spain but returned the Bahamas to England.

In South Africa the Dutch Boers accepted British conquest in 1795 because the British were enemies of the French whom they hated for conquering Holland, their native land.

Scientific advancements in this period included learning from Native Americans who would isolate wounded warriors unlike the Europeans who kept their wounded in infirmaries where they often died from secondary infections. Native American women used quinine, sassafras, ipecac, and witch hazel to treat minor illnesses and injuries.




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The straitjacket was invented during the 1700’s also. Note that the AV or King James Bible uses the word, strait, as a reference to something confining, easily defined in Matthew 7:14 and Job 36:16.

English farmer, Jethro Tull, (not the 1970’s rock and roll band) invented a multirow machine drill that planted several rows of seeds simultaneously. The selective breeding of animals was improved by Robert Blakewell. Added to other events this produced an Agricultural Revolution in England and its colonies. The Andean potato was first introduced to the American colonies in 1718. The idea of cross fertilizing corn is established in 1724

The Agricultural Revolution led to another revolution. In 1709 English ironworks master Abraham Darby makes an important improvement in iron production. In 1712 the English blacksmith, Thomas Newcomen invents a steam engine that bears his name which drives a piston to generate power. Both of these innovations lead England into what is called the Industrial Revolution. Most of humanity through most of history had been almost completely dependent upon either human, animal, wind, or water power for energy to perform work but that was changing. In 1733, English weaver John Kay invents the flying shuttle, a great improvement on the hand loom which simplifies the industrialization of textile production. In 1740, superstrong cast steel, Sheffield Steel is introduced into England by Benjamin Huntsman.

These revolutions in agriculture, textile, and iron and steel production made England a powerhouse and drove it far ahead of any other country for nearly two hundred years. The Industrial Revolution changed the entire fabric of English society. Unemployed and disenfranchised people from the countryside now not only had the New World to emigrate to in order to make a life for themselves but they also moved to the cities where industry was being created. Not only were new opportunities and perhaps a “better life” awaiting them but also slums, alcoholism, and a shorter life in unsafe factory conditions and substandard housing. Many fortunes were made and England became the world’s great superpower but many lives were destroyed and rural ways of life that had gone unchanged for centuries were overthrown. Cities had never been particularly sanitary or safe places to live with open sewers and filth and squalor everywhere but now huge clouds of smoke belched out of many smokestacks in English cities; the price of progress.

Revolutionary new ideas or old ideas rewrapped in modern packaging would emerge from the disaffected in the slums of England, as the voices of poverty and exploitation became the voices of revolution. Children, as young as seven and even younger in some cases, would work 12 to 18 hour days in the service of the new capitalism, in unsafe and inhumane conditions just as their parents would, often just making enough to survive another day. The great textile mills would even advertise for and house children in barracks.



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As the world becomes more and more one global community today, a similar situation exists in developing countries that sell to wealthy countries. The price of progress for most of humanity is lost childhoods and short, miserable lives existing in squalor and hopeless conditions as children in poor countries repeat the trials and tribulations of English children of the 1700’s.

Some of the important scientists of the 1700’s would be Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit of Germany who invented the mercury thermometer in 1714 and I bet you can’t guess what scale of heat measurement. Edmund Halley predicted the return of the comet that bears his name in 1705. Cotton Mather, the Boston preacher, reported that smallpox vaccinations were performed by his black slaves by applying serum from an infected pustule of an infected person into an incision made on a healthy person thereby producing immunity. Other primitive cultures were discovered to do the same thing. Isaac Newton does a great deal of his work in the early 1700’s, becoming president of the Royal Society in 1703, being knighted by Queen Anne in 1705, and continuing his work until his death in1727 when he becomes the first scientist buried in Westminster Abbey, the burial home of many kings. The steam engine is refined, but not invented, by Scottish engineer, James Watt in 1765. Joseph Priestley publishes a work on electricity in 1767. The Frenchman Antoine Lavoisier discovered the effects of oxygen and Austrian Franz Mesmer makes his claims about animal magnetism and hypnotism in the 1770’s.

In 1728, Danish navigator Vitus Bering discovers the Bering Strait, proving that North America is not connected by land to Asia as was hoped while he worked for Czar Peter the Great of Russia. Englishman James Cook discovers what will be called Australia and New Zealand in 1768. In 1735 Carolus Linnaeus from Sweden presents his first system of plant classification. His eventual method of animal and plant life into such categories as family, order, and species will still be used by scientists into the late 20th century. It must be remembered that the way God classifies animals in the Bible is much different from Linnaeus’ method and trying to match them up as in thinking of Biblical “kinds” in terms of Linnaeus’ “species” is like comparing apples to oranges.

Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau publishes Discourse on the Inequalities of Men in 1754 stating that man is good and that civilization corrupted him with social contracts he makes attempting to even things out. This type of thinking underpins the modern welfare state. German philosopher, Immanuel Kant publishes in the mid-century as well.

The smooth-bore musket is improved upon by the Pennsylvania rifle around 1710. Coal is mined in Virginia for the first time in 1742. The Conestoga Wagon is named after the town where it was developed in Pennsylvania’s Amish country in 1753.

On a lighter note, Welsh Catholic priest Father John T. Needham claims to have proven spontaneous generation in 1748, insisting that living things can generate from lifeless matter. This nonsense will persist until in the next century when it is revived in

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the modern theory of evolution that eventually states that all living matter generated from lifeless matter. French evolutionist Jean-Baptiste Robinet publishes his five volume work on theistic evolution in 1761. A theistic evolutionist is someone who believes in evolution but believes that God started it.

Scientific discoveries keep pouring in with the invention of new technologies and the refinement of old ones.

With regard to the arts, in the 1700’s Joruri puppet theater becomes popular in Japan, with puppets having moveable eyes, fingers, and feet, and three performers manipulating each one to enact a story written by playwrights. European actors begin wearing makeup with a type of grease to help them appear to be the age of the character they are playing. This will become, in the next century, powder based makeup applied over a grease foundation. Wax figures become popular both in Europe and in America during this century, also. English painter, William Hogarth, and American greats, John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West work in the 1700’s, as does famed cabinetmaker, Thomas Chippendale.

In 1702, British novelist and journalist, Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, also a religious dissenter to the state church, published his satirical pamphlet, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. For this he was fined, imprisoned, and pilloried. In the same year, Cotton Mather, in America, writes Magnalia Christi Americana, calling for the renaissance of the religious spirit in the Americas. In 1704, English clergyman and writer, Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, writes his famous satires on intellectual corruption, The Battle of the Books and A Tale of a Tub. English poet, Alexander Pope, first publishes in 1709. English critic, Samuel Johnson, begins publishing in 1738. Between 1776 and 1788, English historian, Edward Gibbon, publishes the six volumes of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. English artist and poet, William Blake, and Scottish Poet, Robert Burns, pen their works as does the infamous Marquis de Sade, from which we get the word, sadism. The best known biography in the history of the English language, James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson, is written in 1791.

Between 1732 and 1757, Benjamin Franklin publishes Poor Richard’s Almanack, an annual compendium of practical information and plain philosophical thinking. In 1741, American preacher, Jonathan Edwards, gives and publishes perhaps the greatest sermon in history, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. French humanist, Voltaire, begins publishing in the middle of the century. The first “minstrel” show, with white performers wearing black face, is performed in Philadelphia in 1767. The Farmer’s Almanac first appears in 1793, today called The Old Farmer’s Almanac.

In 1705, George Friedric Handel, eventual composer of the great choral work, Messiah, writes his first opera, Almira. The German composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, becomes court musician to the Duke of Weimar in 1708. He will go on to write and

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perform many great Christian themed masterpieces. In 1764, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart writes his first symphony at the age of eight. In 1778, Ludwig van Beethoven, age eight is presented by his father as a six year old music prodigy. Franz Joseph Haydn begins composing in the late part of the century, as well, as does William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Now, let’s move onto activities purely in the sphere of religion in the 1700’s. In the Catholic Church the Society of Jesus, known as the Jesuits, had become so involved worldwide, in the political affairs of nations as well as in the economic affairs, they were actually expelled from many countries for their meddling. In 1773, Pope Clement XIV wrote a Brief of Dissolution. The order’s general, Father Ricci, was even imprisoned and died in confinement. Their intrusion in commerce and politics in many European countries had been disastrous for those countries with their negative influence going all the way to Japan and China. European opinion was that, when Clement died fourteen months after signing the Brief, it was by the hand of the Jesuits who had become powerful with plantations operated by slaves, manufactures, and a worldwide financial and political empire at stake. Jesuit priests had become the Confessors of many European kings, princes, queens, and princesses and had instigated wars or at least had a hand in their initiation. However, they were re-established in Europe by Pope Pius VII in 1814. One of their supporters called this re-establishment an act of counter-revolution. Nevertheless, they were finally expelled from even Russia by 1820. The society was virtually reborn, however, in the 19th century.

In 1652, as a reaction to the established Church of England, a preacher named George Fox founded the Quakers also known as the Society of Friends, a pacifist Christian group. The Pennsylvania Colony, founded by William Penn, was to be a refuge for Quakers, four of which had been executed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by Puritans, just as Rhode Island had been founded by a Baptist minister, Roger Williams, who, among others, was forced to flee that persecution.
Presbyterians have also featured prominently in United States history. The Rev. Francis Makemie, who arrived in the U.S. from Ireland in 1683, helped to organize the first American Presbytery at Philadelphia in 1706. In 1726, the Rev. William Tennent founded a ministerial 'log college' in Pennsylvania. Twenty years later, the College of New Jersey (now known as Princeton University) was established. Other Presbyterian ministers, such as the Rev. Jonathan Edwards and the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, were driving forces in the so-called "Great Awakening," a revivalist movement in the early 18th century. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Rev. John Witherspoon, was a Presbyterian minister and the president of Princeton University from 1768-1793.
Preacher John Wesley is given the credit for founding the Methodist Church in London, in 1739. The above mentioned churches, among many other groups, had a great influence in American History in particular.

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Now, for a discussion on a group of people whose activities were being sharply curtailed at the end of this period of time although one figured prominently in a famous battle of our second war with Great Britain. I am talking about Pirates, or the Buccaneers. Pirates not only acted on their own but were often used by countries to attack their enemies by virtue of granting them written authorization to attack the opponent’s shipping.

Although, pirates and pirating always existed throughout history as either a purely criminal activity or as a government approved method of cheaply attacking one’s enemy, the most famous pirates and the ones we think of when the word, pirate, is mentioned are the English pirates who sailed the Caribbean Sea in the numerous conflicts with Spain. Pirates still exist today, mostly in Asian and African waters and the US Navy has recently had gun battles with them. But, the colorful pirates of history are, being remote from us in time and not a threat to us personally, fun and interesting to study. Our opinion might change if as a crew member of a merchant vessel plying the Indian Ocean or as a passenger on a cruise ship about to be boarded by AK-47 wielding thugs we realized that our lives were in great danger.

The word Pirate might come from the Latin word, peirato, first coined by Roman Historian Polybius in or around 140BC. Some of the more famous pirates of the period we are studying in this class were Anne Bonny, who began her career in the early 1700’s serving with Captain Calico Jack Rackham (criminals love interesting names). She, like Pirate Mary Read, disguised themselves as men as a practice. Black Caesar was a former Haitian slave who reputedly stashed millions of dollars worth of gold around South Florida which has not been found. Captain Kidd operated as a privateer, attacking French vessels off the coast of New England in the late 1600’s. Eventually he would be involved in attacks on ships of the French East India Company. Finally, being accused of piracy by the English East India Company he was captured and hanged.

Henry Morgan, operating in the late 1600’s, had letters of marque permitting him to attack Spanish shipping and to share his spoils with his government. He began attacking on land so he didn’t have to share and amassed a small fortune in investing in plantations and commerce. He was eventually made Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica by the crown and died, probably from the results of alcoholism, in 1688.

Very little is known personally about the most famous pirate, Blackbeard, who operated and died off the North Carolina coast in the early 1700’s. Like Jesse James of American western fact and legend we, being human, tend to glorify criminals long after they are not a threat to us and after anyone living who has a memory of the evil things they have done is dead. Pirates played no significant role in geopolitics except as a nuisance and a problem for certain governments. People like Sir Francis Drake were regarded as pirates by some countries with which they fought and heroes by the countries for whom they fought. The fact is that pirates, as a whole, were not goodhearted


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humanitarians or Bible Believing Christians on a mission to evangelize the heathen but merely self serving criminals who drank the profits they made by killing not only the enemies of their country but also often innocent people just caught in their path.

Finally, Jean Laffite (Lafitte), a pirate in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 1800’s helped General Andrew Jackson defeat the British at the Battle of New Orleans.

Going back to the book by Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade, it is stated that the British Merchants of this era were the world’s greatest and most successful slave traders. In the next century we shall see how the British government tried to destroy that trade. As a side note, the writer of the hymn, Amazing Grace, John Newton, spent part of his life before he was saved as a slave trader. The Atlantic slave trade reached its height in the 1780’s. State of the art ships hauled about 70,000 Africans per year to ports all along the coastlines of North and South America and the Caribbean. Half of those kidnapped victims were carried by ships flying the flag of Great Britain. William Pitt, the British Prime Minister in 1783, estimated that the West Indies trade, mostly dependent upon slaves, accounted for 4/5th of England’s income from overseas and therefore most of its great wealth. 2/3rd of the slaves carried to the New World were eventually used to make sugar, the most popular tropical product.

The immense wealth of the slave trade created innovative new technologies such as copper sheathed bottoms on ships that protected them from shipworm and made them sail faster which did not help the many thousands of slaves who died in transit from cramped, vermin infested conditions, poor sanitation, and even worse food.

Still, even though colonies in the New World thrived on the use of human beings as personal possessions and beasts of burden, there was a growing stir of resentment in Britain and France against the wicked practice that made Europe rich and made the American colonies of England, France, and Spain viable. With the loss of the colonies by Britain that made up the United States this outcry became even greater. While even the great Christian political thinker, Grotius, and the philosophers, Hobbes and Locke, saw slavery as containing nothing inherently immoral there was indignation first, even from the Catholic Church, about the enslavement of Indians. Captured, black Africans had been so used as slaves for so long it was accepted that their plight was to be a burden carrier for the white European.

In the next century we shall see that things change and that while some will reject slavery altogether, others will be even more attached to this pernicious hypocrisy of the “Christian” civilization of the time. It is interesting to note, that as hideous as the Atlantic slave trade was there are considered to be more slaves in the world today that at any time in history in spite of Paul’s condemnation of “menstealers” in 1 Timothy 1:10, and while the American and the Frenchman cried out for liberty, this liberty did not extend to the black African.

World History, Chapter Twenty

World History – Chapter Twenty
The Enlightenment, the Great Awakening, & the French Revolution,

Now we are going to look at events which also helped mold modern intellectual thought in this era. The next great Humanistic revolution after the era known as The Renaissance is called The Enlightenment. Thomas Aquinas, the 13th century Catholic theologian, who glorified the logic of Aristotle and helped integrate that pagan philosopher’s thoughts into Catholic theology, was one of the early forerunners of both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The intellectual elite that were born of this movement believed that they could improve mankind’s position by attacking Christianity, which they regarded as mere superstition, and the hereditary aristocracy of Europe, which they regarded as tyranny; both concepts holding back mankind’s progress toward some eventual “golden age”. Europe had been ruled by the Roman Catholic Church and by an elite of nobles who owned great land and even small states themselves and passed them onto their offspring by inheritance, often viewing entire people groups as nothing more than a large, private farm holding. One of the beliefs that kings held onto such as King James I of England and Louis XIV, the so-called Sun King of France, was called “the Divine Right of Kings”. This concept stated that Kings ruled at God’s command and under His authority and their power was not to be questioned by inferiors, as the King was accountable only to God. There is much more to this ideal but this simplistic explanation will help you understand the basic attitude.

Another forerunner of the Enlightenment was the scientist, Galileo, who challenged the Church’s Aristotelian and earth centered solar system with the sun centered solar system of Copernicus. The geocentric or earth centered view of scientists such as Tycho Brahe were completely overthrown and we now believe firmly that the earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa without any observational proof. Again, another forerunner was Francois Rabelais, who challenged Church doctrine in his biting satire Gargantua and Pantagruel.

Michel de Montaigne argued that all morals are relative and we don’t really know anything absolute. Two of the most famous thinkers of the Enlightenment were Voltaire and Rousseau, both challenging the aristocracy and denouncing religion, all the while making a half hearted attempt to stay within the good graces of the Catholic Church and the nobility that supported them. Our founding fathers were influenced a great deal by these thinkers and it has been argued that many of our core principles as stated in our founding documents are based on Deism, the belief in a God who is not personally involved in the affairs of men, even if He eventually holds them accountable. The personal beliefs of our “Founding Fathers” are arguable as you can read as many accounts that they were fiercely Christian as you can accounts that they were Deists or Agnostics. I have an account that says the George Washington was baptized by an evangelical preacher and another that says he went to his grave not believing in salvation through Christ alone.




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The Enlightenment’s inevitable result was the French Revolution where all religious faith was condemned as against reason. Of course, this supplanted one type of tyranny with another, just as atheistic religions like socialism and communism later would do by killing thousands and millions in the name of the best interests of human progress rather than in the name of God. Still, a dead person is a dead person, regardless of the reason they were murdered.

Another result of the Enlightenment was the advent of radical Communistic belief and the idea that a “perfect” state could be created without God being a factor at all, utilizing only human reason. Tens of millions of graves in the 20th century prove the fallacy of that notion. The windbags of the “Enlightenment” produced so many volumes of writing that you could devote an entire course to just studying their work and many have. Of course, this only leads one back to Protagoras and his “man is the measure of all things” nonsense.

As a counter strike from God to Satan’s Counter-Reformation and the Enlightenment and all they represent we have an event called “the Great Awakening”. Some religious historians claim that the event called the Great Awakening was a series of revivals along the Eastern Seaboard of the American Colonies that would one day be called the United States of America. Others believe it was one long revival. The Calvinism of the Anglican Church which was in control of the Virginia colony and the Puritans in control of Massachusetts Bay were hardly evangelical enough to keep the number of unchurched people from growing rapidly. The assumption that mankind can make no choice for himself and that those who were saved or who were damned was already set in eternity did not spur a great missionary effort toward recently settled colonists. Scattered homesteads in the wilderness made ecclesiastical control difficult as most of the population was too far from parish authority, something that the state-church concept required to survive.

In 1679, sermons by Solomon Stoddard of Northhampton, Massachusetts, led a series of small revivals to erupt. One of the great preachers of the Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards, who preached, among others, the sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, which is probably one of the greatest, most powerful sermons ever preached anywhere by anyone and should be read by all. This sermon, first preached in 1741, is free on the internet, available to everyone. Although a Calvinist in his beliefs, Edwards pushed the responsibility for choosing Christ clearly into the individual’s hands.
Another important figure of the Great Awakening was George Whitefield, friend of John Wesley and Ben Franklin, whose voice was so loud and clear, that in his sermons, heard by tens of thousands, people reportedly fell to their knees and begged God to save them from over a mile away. Even more than Edwards he stressed the experience of conversion. He might be considered a moderate Calvinist. He attacked traditional clergy, who were often supported by tax money and who often led dead churches with little enthusiasm for Christ or the Bible.


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These men and others like them alienated the “Old Lights” of the Puritan and Anglican Church and helped give American Christianity a distinctive, emotional side that went
beyond the dry formalism of the Reformation churches. Some church historians trace the rise of Unitarianism, a rejection of Christ’s deity and His salvation’s uniqueness, to the “Old Lights” and the modern Charismatic movement to preachers such as Edwards and Whitefield.

In the South, one of the principle leaders of the Great Awakening was Samuel Davies, a Presbyterian. Another was Samuel Morris who would read Whitefield’s sermons aloud beginning in 1748. Thousands of people were converted to Christianity and churches were filled to overflowing. Shubal Stearns, a Baptist, was another influence in this revival movement that swept the South, particularly the frontier.

One of the results of this movement was the democratization of faith. The established state churches of Virginia and Massachusetts began to fall apart as the church could no longer control the faith of the people. Religion became more and more an independent matter and this resulted in the birth of many new denominations, so many that it would, for a long time, become impossible for one religion to dominate others in the USA, as in no other country, in a church-state setup.

With the Enlightenment attacking faith in God and the Great Awakening bringing faith to the people away from the established state-churches, America began to move in distinctly its own path of religious involvement. The Christian faith of the United States became, for the most part, evangelical and personal, a sort of Reformation within the Reformation.

In 1735, John Wesley, an Anglican priest, went with his brother, Charles, to the American colony of Georgia to work for John Oglethorpe, the colony’s founder. During his stay in the colony he was deeply affected by Moravian missionaries and experienced salvation in 1738. Thereafter, he became an influential preacher of the gospel and as an evangelist and founder of Methodism, preached an estimated 40,000 sermons and traveled 250,000 miles. Unlike Edwards and Whitefield his beliefs tended toward, not John Calvin’s, but Jacob Arminius, in that he gave mankind more input into his own salvation and also gave him the opportunity to lose it. A classic “must read” sermon of Wesley’s is The Almost Christian which, like his other sermons, can be found free on line. This sermon and Edwards’ previously mentioned sermon should be read in Christian churches at least once each year, in my opinion.

While Christianity in America was undergoing a massive overhaul something else was happening in Europe. The Enlightenment called into question all previously held absolutes such as the state-religion and the aristocracy. Liberal thought held that these two things were holding humanity back. Louis XIV’s intolerance and absolutism, essentially the concept of “the Divine Right of Kings”, was undermined with each generation. The final victory of the new USA in 1783 also helped overthrow beliefs in

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what was called the Ancien Regime. There were three classes of people in France; the First Estate consisting of the Clergy, the Second Estate of the Aristocracy, and the Third Estate which was everyone else. (We call the news media the Fourth Estate but it was not a big factor in those times). The Third Estate consisted of the peasants, the urban poor,
and the emerging middle class called the Bourgeoisie. Beginning in 1789, under the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the monarchy was overthrown under the Estates-General and the royal couple were executed by a beheading device named for French doctor and revolutionary Ignace Guillotine although similar machines had been in use for centuries such as the Scottish Maiden, first used in the 1300’s to behead political opponents of kings. Early forms of capital punishment apparatus can be called gibbets.

The French Revolution saw the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the First Republic which was overthrown by Napolean and for the next 75 years France wavered between a republic and an empire. The French Revolution, the violent overthrow of the existing government, and the even more repressive tyranny that followed would be repeated several times over the next two hundred years. The establishment of dictatorships under the guise of serving “the people” would become one of the great threats to the world throughout the 20th century.

The political events of this era, between 1600 and 1800, were chaotic and complicated. The Thirty Years War started as a religious war between Catholics and Protestants in Germany. Eventually it also became a struggle by the Hapsburg Dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire trying to gobble up as much of Europe as possible in opposition to France’s Bourbon Dynasty and Protestant states. On the Catholic Hapsburg side was Austria, most of the German Catholic princes, and Spain. Opposing them were the Protestant princes of Germany, the Protestant kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, and Catholic France. As war raged across Europe, from Poland to the Netherlands, the population was devastated and not since the Mongol invasion had there been such carnage on such a wide scale. In 1608 the Protestant princes of Germany led by Frederick IV, Elector Palatine, and Christian of Anhalt, combined in protest to form the Evangelical Union against the occupation by Maximilian of Bavaria of the free city of Donauworth. Maximilian then created the Catholic league along with other Catholic princes to oppose them in 1609.

In 1609, King Rudolph of Bohemia declared religious freedom for his Protestant subjects protected by a body of men known as “the Defenders”. As a result, he was deposed by his brother Matthias in 1611 and the freedom was reversed. In 1612 Matthias was elected Holy Roman Emperor. In 1617, because he was childless, his councilors elected Archduke Ferdinand of Styria as heir but he was faced with a refusal to be recognized by Protestants led by Matthias of Thurn. On May 22, 1618, two of the king’s most trusted councilors were thrown from the windows of the Castle Hradschin in what is called the Defenestration of Prague, which led to open rebellion. The Thirty Years War started with a Bohemian Period between 1618 and 1625, ending with the siege of Breda, the year after Cardinal Richelieu of France brought his country into the war. Richelieu,

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the king’s chief minister from 1622 to 1642, is also famous in history for promoting the idea that religion was a means of promoting the interests of the state.

As centers of power moved, the next period of the Thirty Years War between 1625 and 1629 was called the Danish Period after Christian IV of Denmark invaded Germany. This
period lasted until 1629 when Cardinal Richelieu arranged a truce between Poland and Sweden, allowing Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden to enter the fray in Germany. The Swedish Period lasted from 1630 until 1634. As the Protestant forces fought against the Catholic forces under Count Albrecht Von Wallenstein, victory seesawed between the forces, ravaging Germany. The French Period began in 1634 when Catholic Cardinal Richelieu assumed control of the Protestant forces due to the war going badly for them. After Richelieu and Louis XIII died in 1642 and 1643 respectively, a Spanish Imperial Army invaded France but was repulsed. The war was finally ended by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 which gave France Alsace and Lorraine through the Treaty of Munster between the empire and that country. Sweden, Denmark, and the German Protestants signed the Treaty of Osnabruck which guaranteed equality within the empire of Catholic and Protestant states. France and Spain continued to fight. The peace is termed “Westphalia” because of the location of both treaty cities 50km apart in the present day states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony.

By 1680, France under Louis XIV was attempting to secure hegemony (dominance of one state over others) over the continent of Europe. Its population of 19 million was three times that of England or Spain and its army, organized under Minister of War, Louvois, was the strongest in Europe. The French Navy was the most powerful in the Mediterranean Sea. France’s economy was not dependent upon foreign colonies like the Dutch (aka the Netherlands) and the English. This time, the Protestant princes of Germany allied themselves with William of Orange of Holland against Louis as his supporters were also attempting to overthrow James II of England. Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes promising tolerance to Protestants so it was easy to create a Protestant alliance against him, called the League of Augsburg. A revolution in England brought William of Orange to the throne there. The ensuing war is called the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg and lasted from 1688 to 1697 with fighting mostly in the Netherlands. It was ended by the Treaty of Ryswick in which the combatants agreed to return almost all of their gains back to the original owners.

Before we move to England, let’s look at a very brief history of the English parliament. It had its origins in Anglo-Saxon times as a council advising the kings. William the Conqueror ruled as an absolute monarch but depended upon a council of nobles and clergy for advice. The royal council slowly developed into a Parliament with members being voted in by citizens who owned land. By the reign of Edward III, in the 1300’s (14th century) the parliament had formed two houses, one for the upper nobility and higher clergy and one for knights and lower knights and freemen of a borough or small political division. These freemen were called burgesses. There was a constant tension between Parliament and the King over time and many civil wars resulted from this

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tension. Today, the Parliament is the supreme legislative institution of the United Kingdom, thereby asserting the rights of elected government over the authority of the royalty.

James I of England, known also as James VI of Scotland, ruled from 1603 to 1625, overseeing history’s greatest Book, peace with Spain, and the unification of Britain. He
did participate in the Thirty Years War on a small scale with disastrous results including renewed hostilities with Spain. His son, Charles I, reigned from 1625 to 1649. He sent an expedition to fight for French Huguenots (Protestants) besieged by Cardinal Richelieu, which led to an Anglo-France war between 1626 and 1630. In 1628, Parliament issued the Petition of Right asserting grievances such as protests against royal taxation without parliamentary assent, the imposition of martial law in times of peace, and the mandatory billeting of troops in private homes. After peace was made with France and Spain in
1630, there was a rebellion in Scotland over the imposition of the Anglican liturgy into Scottish Presbyterian services called the First Bishops War ended by the Pacification of Dunse in which Charles compromised on the issues. In 1640 there was a second uprising in Scotland, called the Second Bishop’s War during which Charles called a “short parliament” to vote funds. When the commons refused to vote funds for the war he dissolved parliament. Scottish troops in Northern England and a lack of funds made him agree to the Triennial Act which permitted Parliament to assemble every three years without royal initiative.

In 1641, there was a slaughter in Ireland we have discussed and the Irish War which was the prelude to the Great Rebellion due to Charles desperate need of money to pursue the war. Puritan dissidents in Parliament, in an attempt to resist the formation of a standing army, compiled a list of grievances called the Grand Remonstrance. Charles’ bad handling of this resulted in Parliament raising an army to oppose the army that Charles was raising. The First Civil War raged between 1642 and 1646 with commander Oliver Cromwell rising to prominence and Charles being defeated and surrendering to a Scottish force rather than the Parliamentary one. During a brief interlude between 1646 and 1648 Charles obtained support of the Scots by promising to support Presbyterianism and then war broke out again in what is known as The Second Civil War. This ended with Cromwell’s parliamentary forces being victorious over the king and with Charles being beheaded on January 30, 1649. The struggle in Ireland continued through 1650. Crom- well’s military reforms created the New Model Army, consisting of professional soldiers led by veteran generals and known for their Puritan religious zeal.

The monarchy was restored in 1660 with Charles II. The period in between saw the Parliament even at odds with the new army and a maritime or sea war between the British and the Dutch. Then, with the rule of James II came Protestant unrest over his attempts to restore Catholicism to equality leading to the takeover by William of Orange and Mary for which the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is named in what is called the Glorious Revolution. There was another Irish War as James attempted to defeat


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William with a French force between 1689 and 1691. James lost this effort and it is said that if he had had the full help of Louis XIV history would have been quite different.
There are a great many more events; military and political, scientific and cultural that I have unavoidably, due to time, had to leave out of this class. There is almost continuous war at various locations in Europe with everyone involved in bloody disputes as outside of Europe, colonization by Europeans continues around the world. European culture and the European form of Christianity is spread everywhere on the globe.

In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire is slowly declining but that doesn’t prevent it from engaging in several wars with European powers and trying to assert itself within Europe. There were wars with Austria, Persia, revolts by Kurds and Druses, a war with Poland, a Janissary revolt, a war with the powerful Italian city of Venice over the island of Crete, and in 1683 the Turkish Empire came close to taking Vienna, Austria. Were it
not for the relief by Polish forces under John Sobieski and his defeat of the Turks at the Battle of Vienna they might have been successful.

During this period, Russia expanded into Central Asia (in the 17th century) and then moved toward Siberia, finally clashing with the Chinese Manchus between 1653 and 1685.

China saw the emergence of the Manchu state between 1600 and 1615. Their struggle with the Ming dynasty was eventually successful after many setbacks as the Ming suffered many rebellions in the interior of China between 1635 and 1644. The Manchus conquered Korea and Inner Mongolia first before the Ming dynasty finally collapsed in 1644 after trying to get the Manchu’s help to defeat a rebellion. The Manchu’s used the opportunity of Ming weakness and dissension to consolidate their own hold over China by 1683.

Japan, since the late 1400’s had been rent by civil strife, beginning with the War of the Monks. The country had been ruled by a feudal military dictatorship under a Shogun under the nominal leadership of an emperor since the late first millennium AD. Still under a feudal society until the 19th century, Japanese society was assaulted by constant wars between the nobility and uprisings of peasants. In 1542 the Portuguese introduced the musket and Catholic Christianity with Jesuit Francis Xavier being one of the most important missionaries. Nobleman Oda Nobunaga began successfully reuniting Japan between 1560 and 1568 and his principal general, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a commoner, completed the reunification by 1590. In the 1600’s all foreigners were excluded from Japan and Catholic Christianity was banned. Japan remained almost completely isolated from the outside world for two centuries.

During the 1600’s North India saw the death of one great leader, Akbar, and the reign of another, Aurangzeb. The latter crowned himself emperor at Delhi in 1658 and conquered Assam in northeastern India. He began to persecute non-Moslems, alienating the masses of people who were predominantly Hindu. After many revolts and much

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turmoil his bankrupt empire collapsed after his death in 1707. Hindu South India successfully repulsed Mogul incursions under the Maratha Kingdom after many setbacks and seesaw or back and forth decisions on the battlefield. The inclusion of European powers in Indian politics muddied the water but did not, at first, have a great influence on the outcome other than Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) isolating itself as Japan had done, only surrendering its coast to the Dutch. The government of Ceylon retreated inland by 1658. The British were the most influential, establishing a fort on the Indian island of Bombay in 1667 and fighting a war in Bengal with the Mogul’s in 1686 which resulted in building Fort William, or modern day Calcutta.

The 16th and 17th century saw an explosion in the arts and sciences. English dramatist Christopher Marlowe and poet John Donne write in the late 1500’s aka the 16th century. William Shakespeare, history’s greatest known playwright, begins writing and producing his plays in the last decade of that century, as well, with such titles as Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, and The Comedy of Errors. He will be known for his masterpieces; Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Macbeth, among others. The original Globe Theater opened in London in 1599 and eventually showcased most of his plays. It wasn’t until 1660 that women began to act in plays in London, all the female parts during Shakespeare times being played by men or boys. Drury Lane, London’s most famous theater, opens in 1663. Its fourth incarnation still operates today.

The first Ballet can be linked to the massacre of the Huguenots, amazingly. Catherine de Medici, in 1581, was creating a lavish entertainment for the wedding of her son’s (Henry II of France) sister in law. She commissioned court musician and dance master, Baldassare di Belgoioso, aka Beaujoyeuix, to design the spectacle. He, on October 15, 1581, staged the Ballet comique de la reine, considered to be the first Ballet. In 1652, King Louis XIV danced the minuet and this French country dance became fashionable beginning a revolution in popular dancing. The first opera is thought to have dated from 1597 and was called Dafne, an attempt to revive classical Greek drama with its chorus telling a story. Italian violin maker, Stradivari, begins making his benchmark violins in 1666 and the most prized violins in history become known as Stradivarius.

In 1590, Spanish painter El Greco painted his famous St. Jerome. Rembrandt paints The Binding of Samson in 1636. Italian marionette shows began to be performed in London in the 1600’s featuring a buffoonish character named Punch. In the 1700’s, he is joined by a wife, first named Joan, then named Judy. Punch and Judy shows are still played in English speaking parts of the world today.

In Iran the elaborate parades where people cut and whip themselves in elaborate mourning ceremonies begin in the 1600’s. In Japan, Kabuki theatre develops into a stylized and highly commercial art form. Many scholars claim that the Easter Island ancestor figures are being cut from volcanic rock at this time while others claim it is done much earlier.


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Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes was published in 1615. English philosopher Francis Bacon publishes The Wisdom of the Ancients in 1619. In 1610, English Dramatist, Ben Jonson’s great work The Alchemist is produced. The poet John Donne writes Pseudo-Martyr in 1610. In 1641, English poet, John Milton begins publishing and publishes Paradise Lost in 1667. French playwright, Moliere, begins his rise to fame in 1658. English politician Samuel Pepys’ Diary is written between 1660 and 1669. John Bunyan publishes Pilgrim’s Progress in 1678.

Between 1643 and 1715, the Louis the XIVth style of decoration and architecture, known today mostly in furniture and characterized by formality is popular. The Palace of Versailles is constructed for him between 1669 and 1710. He was not just a great persecutor of Bible believing Protestants but a great patron of the arts and culture, both being reasons why the world and historians love him.

In 1651, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes publishes Leviathian, arguing that absolute obedience to supreme authority is essential to keep people from destroying each other. English architect, Christopher Wren, is at work on St. Paul’s Cathedral in London between 1675 and 1710.

In science, Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy in 1564 and is considered to be the founder of the experimental method. He became famous for his dispute with the Roman Catholic Church regarding their insistence upon Aristotle’s theories (called Aristotelian) of a geocentric solar system (planets and sun revolve around the earth) and Copernicus’ early 16th century heliocentric theory (planets and earth revolve around the sun). We believe today, as astronomer Fred Hoyle who coined the term “Big Bang” has stated, that all motion is relative to the observer; however, most everyone accepts Copernican theory as true. In 1590 in a famous experiment dropping cannon balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa Galileo refutes Aristotle’s views on falling bodies although it is not certain if this actual event ever happened. Many of Galileo’s experiments have been questioned as to whether or not they were ever truly performed. By the way, the famous Pisa tower is actually the bell tower of Pisa’s Cathedral which began leaning almost immediately after it was constructed beginning in 1173.

Astronomer Tycho Brahe studies a supernova that is visible for months in 1572. He established an observatory in Denmark beginning two years later. Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar in 1582 and we still use the Gregorian calendar today. In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh brings the deadly poison curare to England and in 1586 Sir Francis Drake brings the potato to Ireland which nearly three hundred years later has become virtually the only food planted which results in a blight and then a famine that drives tens of thousands of Irish to America.

In 1596 the water closet, a primitive toilet, is invented to replace the outhouse or privy and the chamber pot by English poet Sir John Harington. Mathematician Johannes Kepler becomes Tycho’s assistant when he moves his work to Prague around 1600. Around

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1612, on advice from Native Americans Virginian colonists began planting tobacco on a large scale. King James I hatred of the weed and his first writing against it did not hinder the growth of tobacco’s use. You can find his Counterblast to Tobacco free online and you should read it.

Rubber is first introduced to Europe from America in 1615. The great French mathematician, Blaise Pascal; scientist and religious philosopher, is born in 1623. To Christians, he is best known for “Pascal’s Wager”, in essence, that believing in God has greater benefits than not believing in God, regardless of whether or not He exists. If you don’t have a day to day relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in dealing with your sin and answered prayer in connection with your Bible reading (God talking to you) and
prayer (you talking to God) then these philosophical speculations about God’s existence become important to justify your faith.

Inventor of the double convex microscope, Anton von Leeuwenhoek, is born in 1632 as is English philosopher, John Locke. Locke had a tremendous impact on America’s “founding fathers” and was the founder of British Empiricism that believed that all knowledge is based on experience thereby denying God’s unique revelations and Satan’s counterfeits of those revelations.

Sugar is first grown by the Dutch in Barbados in 1636. In 1637, French mathematician Descartes, known for his statement “I think, therefore I am” introduces analytical geometry. Irish chemist Robert Boyle discovers his famous law in 1662. Isaac Newton discovers calculus in 1665. Rice begins to be cultivated in South Carolina in 1671, the same year that Cassini, the Italian-French astronomer directs the completion of the Paris Observatory. In 1680 the last Dodo bird was exterminated by Dutch colonists on the island of Mauritius. In 1698, the London Stock Exchange opens, which is the same year that Champagne is invented by Dom Perignon. Of course, all of this is on the edge of the 1700’s when mentally ill people are to be displayed in “idiot cages” for the amusement of the public in England.

Now, for something completely different let’s turn to Pietism. This was a spiritual reaction against the dead orthodoxy of the state church (Lutheran) in Germany. The Pietist movement, with the Moravians, developed into a worldwide missionary movement. An Austrian, Baron Justinian Von Weltz, born in 1621, called for the organization of a missionary society and had pointed out the missionary obligations of his church. Failing in his attempts to arouse the spiritually dead Lutherans of his day, he volunteered himself for the mission field and died in Dutch Guiana in 1688. Another German, Peter Heyling, went to Egypt and Abyssinia and died a martyr’s death in 1660.
The leaders of the Pietistic movement were Philip Jacob Spener (1635-1705) and August Hermann Francke (1663-1727). The leaders of the Moravian Brethren were Count Zinzendorf (1700-1760) and August Spangenburg (1704-1792). Francke set up the first Christian university in Germany not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church or state Protestantism. He also founded an orphanage which raised up Bible Believing mission-

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aries and evangelists in Halle, near Leipzig. The Bohemian Brethren and the Moravian Brethren were trained by graduates of Francke’s school. Spener was strongly influenced by Puritan writers from England such as Richard Baxter, Calvin, and Dutch Pietists who followed the teachings of Menno (the Mennonites) Simon. In 1670 he began holding Bible Studies and prayer meetings in his home in Frankfort, Germany. The result of these meetings was a national revival among German Christians with regard to soul winning, preaching, and an emphasis on being “born again” or “born of the Spirit” (John 3; 1 Peter 1:23).

In 1694, the Elector of Brandenburg commissioned Christian Thomasius to set up a university. This school turned out thousands of missionaries in the next century. The
Dutch-Halle Mission began in 1705 and Bartholomew Ziegenbalg went to India and left a complete translation of the Bible in Tamil, a native language. Friederich Schwartz labored for 48 years in India.

With regard to the history of the Baptist churches in England the line of English churches that can be traced historically, who consistently called themselves Baptists, began in 1610 in Holland, according to some sources. This is not to say there were no Baptists in Britain earlier, but that this began a line of churches whose history can be traced. It began with a man named John Smyth who was a bishop in the Church of England. In 1606, after study of the New Testament he was convinced that the doctrines and practices of the Church of England were not Biblical, and thus he resigned his position as priest and left the church. Baptists, like myself, are fond of saying that we are not Protestants but from a much earlier line of Christians extending back to the apostles but the plain truth is that the churches that first called themselves Baptist can only be traced this way. There is a heresy called “Baptist Bride” which insists that only the Baptist church is the New Testament church, which is, of course, nonsense. Any church that follows the New Testament practices of the churches Paul taught is a New Testament church. Baptists were simply unique among Protestant churches in their opposition to the alliance between church and state until recently, and infant baptism. Apostolic succession is truly about belief being handed down, not an office.
Because of persecution by the Anglican Church of all who disagreed with it and who refused to submit to its authority, John Smyth had to flee England. In Amsterdam, he along with Thomas Helwys and thirty six others formed the first Baptist church of Englishmen known to have stood for baptism of believers only, rejecting infant baptism completely.
Smyth, believed that the only real apostolic succession is a succession of Biblical New Testament truth, and not of outward ordinances and visible organization such as the Church of England or the Roman Church. He believed the only way to recover was to form a new church based on the Bible. He then baptized himself (which is not biblical) and then the others of his congregation. In only a few years however, the church had dwindled to ten members losing many to the Mennonites and other groups in Holland.

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Smyth died in 1612, and the church ended in Holland shortly thereafter with Helwy, Thomas and John Murton returning to England as persecution there had lessened. History records that the members of this Baptist church went back to England or remained in Holland and joined Mennonites. It did not produce a succession of other churches, but those who founded it went on to establish other Baptist churches in England.
Back in England these men, upon returning to England, formed the first recorded Baptist church on English soil. By 1626, the churches had grown from one to five churches and by 1644 there were forty congregations. The Baptist movement grew rapidly.
These first Baptist churches formed in England were Armenian in theology, which taught that all men could be saved. The Calvinistic or Particular Baptists were a different group and believed in limited atonement in which only the elect could be saved.
Particular Baptist had their beginnings around 1616, when some "dissenters" left the Church of England and were lead by the Rev. Henry Jacob. By 1644, these congregations grew to seven churches.
John Knox, a Scotsman who studied with Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland, took Calvin's teachings back to Scotland. Other Reformed communities developed in England, Holland and France. The Presbyterian Church traces its ancestry back primarily to Scotland and England. In Scotland it became the state sanctioned church.

The Lutheran church was primarily the state Protestant church of the Protestant princes of Germany. The Congregational Church, in at least one source, traces its roots back to 16th century dissenters in England.

The Episcopal and Methodist churches were formed in the 1700’s out of the Anglican Church.

There are two main points in bringing these little pieces of evidence up here at the end of this lesson. First, there are two parallel strains of history; one is Satan’s attempts to form and mold governments whose purpose is to one day stand against God as one voice, in one mass. This swirl of nations engaged in constant warfare and the slave trade, spiritually dominated by state churches, explodes in the 17th century, the 1600’s. Second, God uses the conquering impulses of Japheth, the European, who is “enlarged” (Genesis 9:27) to spread the gospel around the world and to create a Bible to be used in the effort. The Vaudois or Waldensians, as J.A. Wylie puts it in his History of Protestantism, did not cross oceans so God raised up and used the Reformation churches to move His word everywhere. When these churches arrive in America they will eventually lose their civil powers but as we will see in the next class that some painful lessons have to first be learned.

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The strength of America is its diversity. The large number of religious denominations prevents any one from taking political control of the country. This is not to say that they are all doctrinally correct and I am not saying that Seventh Day Adventists, Baptists, and Presbyterians are all exactly alike or that I agree with everything they all say. The point I’m trying to make is that here we have the freedom to go to Hell our own way or to go to Heaven God’s way and finding out which is which should be a main concern of our lives but none of the government’s business.

Next, we will discuss the 1700’s, known as the 18th century, and focus, as well, on the American colonial experience.

Latest Reading

The Fabric of Terror by Bernardo Teixeira, The Devin-Adair Company, New York, 1965. This book chronicles the massacres committed by US and UN backed terrorists, trained by Moscow and Peking, on white and black Angolans, both of Portugese and African descent. The atrocities are documented with photographs and numerous eyewitness accounts. This is a very disturbing account of the failure of Western policy in Africa and the success of communist trained and inspired terrorism to set Africa back five hundred years. As a result of the success of terrorist regimes in Africa, the continent will remain a welfare case until saner heads prevail. The events gruesomely depicted took place in 1961.

Latest Reading

The Man & His Ways, An Introduction to the Customs and Beliefs of Rhodesia's African People, by Ministry of Information, Immigration and Tourism, Salisbury, Rhodesia, 1969. This very interesting booklet's purpose is to tell the Rhodesian of European extraction and the tourist, such as they were in this besieged country, fighting Soviet Communist trained terrorists on one hand and Chinese Communist trained terrorists on the other, all the while cut off from the world by the UN, Great Britain and a hypocritical USA, about the customs and habits of the native people. There were things I didn't know that were brought to light in this book that explains some of recent African history that befuddled me. For instance, in Liberia's recent civil wars a coup member actually cut off and ate part of the body of a former president whom he had killed. The reason for this is that by eating a part of the victim's body, a murderer becomes one with the victim and the victim's angry spirit will not seek revenge. Amazing stuff. The African's overwhelming fear of witchcraft and some of the violent behavior we have seen in the news lately in Nigeria are explained, as well, taking the mystery out of some macabre barbarity. Of course, the writers make comparisons to European history and customs not too long ago abandoned that show how closely related we are to the African. Its well written, handling the African culture with respect and always reminding the European that not long ago his or her ancestors did the same things and felt very similarly about life and death, marriage, business, what constitutes being polite or rude, etc. etc. Worth reading if you can get the book. I'm not giving mine up.

Proverbs, chapter two, commentary

1 ¶ My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;
These first five verses are one long sentence and I’m going to break them down, linking them to other verses, which I believe is the only way to properly study the Bible.
Notice these wonderful words from God that I have shown previously apply to both young men and young women;
Psalm 119:1 ¶ ALEPH. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD. 2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart. 3 They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.
4 ¶ Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently. 5 O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes! 6 Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.
7 ¶ I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments. 8 I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly.
9 ¶ BETH. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
10 ¶ With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
11 ¶ Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
12 ¶ Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.
13 ¶ With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. 14 I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. 15 I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. 16 I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.
17 ¶ GIMEL. Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word.
18 ¶ Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
19 ¶ I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.
2 So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;
“Incline thine ear” implies tilting your head to hear something that interests you. Notice its use in some cases in the great prayers in Psalms.
Psalm 17:6 I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.
Psalm 45:10 Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house;
Psalm 71:2 Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me, and save me.
Psalm 88:2 Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry;
Psalm 102:2 Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.
It is important to apply your heart to understanding.
Ezra 7:10 For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.
The phrase “apply thine heart” comes again twice in Proverbs. We have discussed understanding before and how it is the one thing animals don’t have. Neither do many wealthy and powerful people. It shows you can be clever, even successful in life, have power, money, and prestige, and still be as without understanding as one of my cats.
Understanding is something that people must apply themselves to. You need to prepare your heart. God does not make His unsearchable judgments known to a person who doesn’t care or just reads the Book like a duty, not regarding what it says. When you read this Book, apply your heart to understanding. Incline your hear, listen intently, and apply your heart.
3 Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;
Here are some conditions laid out. You have to actually pursue knowledge and understanding before you receive it. God will not give either one to someone who doesn’t want them. So, here is an “if”, giving what you are to seek and the direction you are to seek it from, “up”. Cry out to God.
Isaiah 45:8 Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.
Here, the direction from which the right “wisdom” comes is made clear.
James 3:17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
4 If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;
The person who is looking for these things from God; His words, His commandments, His wisdom, and His understanding, must look for them like a precious metal and look in the right direction, looking and digging for them like you would for buried treasure. Remember all the stories of Spanish gold and Pirate’s riches buried secretly or lost at sea. Imagine the millions that have been spent on retrieving them.
The Russian newspaper, Pravda, reports that people hunting for treasure off the coast of Florida will spend $2,000 to $10,000 just to get a couple of gold Spanish doubloons off the ocean floor. What would you pay for just a small amount of the treasures from God He mentions? It takes time and purpose and intent as you can get a King James Bible for just a dollar. With this Book the situation is reversed. While a carnal man might spend thousands to retrieve one piece of gold, a Christian has all the unsearchable riches of God available to them for a dollar.
5 Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
Job 28:28 And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.
Psalm 19:9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
Psalm 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.
Let’s go back to chapter one, verse seven and then also verse 29.
Hosea 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
Romans 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
2 Corinthians 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
Colossians 1:10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
6 For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
God is the source of all wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. Any of things that do not come from Him are not of Him and cannot be called honestly by those names. There is no wisdom, no knowledge, and no understanding that doesn’t come from God.
7 He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
The righteous man or woman is easily defined further down in verse 20. God’s wisdom is sound, solid, and real. Something is sound when it is real and true.
1 Timothy 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; 11 According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
2Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2Timothy 1:13 Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
2Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
Titus 1:9 Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
Titus 1:13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;
Titus 2:1 But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: 2 That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
Titus 2:8 Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.
A buckler is a small shield for defense and for offense. It can be used to block and parry and to punch and cut.
8 He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints.
Remember this verse;
Jeremiah 6:16 Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.
To keep is to preserve as this makes clear (notice the linkage between the two phrases), and to guard, like the Keep of a castle, as well as to hold fast.
Genesis 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Genesis 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
Genesis 28:15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
The path’s of God’s judgment are to be the ways of His saints. God’s way for His saints doesn’t change. His ethics aren’t what we used to call situational ethics. His ways are absolute and always true. He keeps them, preserves them. Don’t misunderstand this and think He’s going to preserve whatever way you want to go. There is only His way. I’ll give you an example. There is a law of gravity. You can hate it. You can defy it. But if you jump off a height far enough from the ground you are probably going to break your leg, your opinion or desires notwithstanding.
9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.
Follow God’s ways. Imagine a road and on the road a sign with mileage distances pointing to righteousness, judgment, and equity, as different roads. Every good path. You aren’t going to find these paths if you change God’s words, twist God’s words, or use God’s words to suit your own modernistic agenda, even if you want to call it holy and righteous. You ignore these paths at your peril. There’s nothing but quicksand to either side. Define these words by the Bible’s clear definitions, not some internet or TV preacher’s ignorance and flights of fancy.
10 ¶ When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
Your spiritual heart is where wisdom must enter in. It is from the heart that God rules a born again Christian who listens to God speak to his spiritual heart through God’s own words.
Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
Matthew 12:35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
It’s a wonderful thing when knowing God becomes something that is sweet to you. When you find delight in reading his word, and it isn’t a chore, and when you hunger to pray and to hear his word spoken. Later on in Proverbs, pleasant words are said to be sweet and healthy.
11 Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:
We discussed discretion back in verse 4. Let’s go back and review what was said. The ability to act responsibly with restraint will preserve you. Let’s review what was said about understanding earlier as well. Animals have teeth and claws and imparted wisdom which the Discovery Channel crowd calls instinct. You, on the other hand, need understanding that comes from God. This is something that not only animals don’t have but men in high position and wealth without God lack. Notice, also that the way this verse is written that preserve and keep are shown to be synonyms, or words with the same meaning.
12 To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;
Discretion can preserve you by keeping a young woman from being alone with a young man. Discretion can preserve you by keeping a young man off the streets late at night. Discretion can preserve you by eating wisely, exercising, getting enough sleep, and helpful personal habits. Discretion can keep you from fights, prison, and being isolated from your family. Discretion can save your life. Here, discretion can deliver you from “the way of the evil man” and “from the man that speaketh forward things”.
The evil man does wickedness.
Psalm 10:15 Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.
Genesis 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Wickedness is committing sin against God, here in the context of sexual sin.
Genesis 39:9 There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?
The evil man is a violent man.
Psalm 140:1 Deliver me, O LORD, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man;
Proverbs 17:11 tells us that the evil man is a rebellious man. Sexual sin, violence, and rebellion pretty much sum of the spirit of the age, don’t they? Contrast that with righteousness, judgment, and equity.
Froward can mean having no faith, a faithless person.
Deuteronomy 32:20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
Unsavoury as the opposite of pure.
2Samuel 22:27 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself unsavoury.
Crafty, clever, and sneaky.
Job 5:13 He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.
Wicked.
Psalm 101:4 A froward heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person.
We’ll see Froward again in Proverbs soon and later. Discretion will keep you, young women from boys with smooth words and flattering tongues. Discretion will keep you young man from a girl who is not quite right upstairs and who will cause you much grief and sorrow. I’ve known young men who ran off to be with the first girl who paid them any attention because she propped up his ego, only to find that she was pretty like a poisonous snake. I’ve known young women who were taken in by abusers and immoral, wicked boys who just knew the right things to say, “the silver tongued devil”, we used to call him.
Cultivate discretion, young people, and you will be spared much grief. Judge everything by the Book. Many evil people don’t even know they’re evil. Their heart and conscience are so seared they can’t even understand how wicked they are. But, there are many people; handsome and pretty, clever, church going, right dressing, Bible toting, people who know exactly what they are doing. They will use you and leave you bewildered at what happened.
Discretion, acting responsibly with restraint, and letting God’s words speak to your heart every day can help preserve you from the ways of the evil and froward.
13 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;
The evil person can’t help but leave all the paths of uprightness that God has laid out, the old paths mentioned in Jeremiah 6:16 wherein lies the good way, and walk in the ways of darkness. He or she will lead you there if you let them. Notice this in Paul’s brief history of the moral state of mankind in Romans 1 and 2.
Romans 1:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
We are not called to walk in darkness.
Isaiah said of Israel in Isaiah 59:9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
1John 1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
2Corinthians 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Now, there’s a lot of wiggle room in these verses for someone with bad intent to define what uprightness is or darkness is based on their own paranoia, self righteousness, and personal agenda. I’m not going to do that. You want to know what God wants from you? Read the Bible prayerfully and ask Him for His will. Follow the convictions He lays on your heart faithfully. Run them by your Pastor, your parents, some wise person in the church who has led a good life by example and who walks close to God; a woman if you are a woman and a man if you are a man. Don’t be lazy and let someone define righteousness outside of the literal confines of scripture.
If someone tells you that God wants you to be a vegetarian because of 1 Corinthians 8:13 then you better know this Book back and forth and have an intimate relationship with Christ through it or you might be led to believe what he’s saying is true. Many a preacher has taken one verse out of the Bible and made it such an irrevocable and undeniable doctrine that many have been harmed because they weren’t capable of discerning between truth and error.
I used vegetarianism as an example but a brief listen to some of the so called great preaching on the internet will reveal to you just how deceitful some can be, if you know the word of God and define the words in the Book by its own definitions. As a further example, I’m not laying down guidelines for how you dress. I am concerned what’s in your heart. The person who comes in here in a long dress can have as much sin on their mind and in their heart as a person who comes in wearing shorts or a miniskirt. A standard is a good thing but it is not the same thing as having the fruit of the Spirit pouring out of every part of your life.
Uprightness of heart leads to righteousness according to Deuteronomy 9:5 and 1 Kings 3:6. It is integrity of heart in 1 Kings 9:4. It is doing what God has commanded you and following His statutes and judgments. The specific statutes and judgments for the Christian can be found laid out in Paul’s letters.
Job 33:3 links uprightness of heart and knowledge.
Job 33:3 My words shall be of the uprightness of my heart: and my lips shall utter knowledge clearly.
Verse 10 says knowledge is pleasant to the soul. Chapter one, verse twenty two says that fools hate knowledge.
14 Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
The evil man or woman, as the Bible and our own experience make clear, rejoice and are happy to do evil. People, in fact, run to do evil and are very good at it. No one has to teach a child to do wrong.
Jeremiah 4:22 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
They delight in the faithless ways of other wicked people. Mark Twain is said to have made the observation that the “only native American criminal class is Congress” and that “no one’s life, liberty, or property is safe while Congress is in session”. The one thing that people do better than doing evil by themselves is doing it as a group.
Think of the reason that the phrase “he’s bad” has come to mean something good in our culture. Even the word “wicked” has been used by many to describe something that they approve of or take pleasure in.
As in chapter one, verse 16 talks about the person with evil intent runs to do it, let’s look at Isaiah.
Isaiah 59:7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
There are a lot of people out there who fit this description. You aren’t going to change them. Some of them claim to be Christians and faithfully attend church, dress right, and do good things, at least on the surface. Many more have rejected Christ, if they have ever heard of Him outside of being a swear word. Some are rich, some are poor, and they are born into every race and culture on earth.
In fact, you have to be very careful. Some of the most corrupt people I’ve ever met in business will either have a Bible on their desk, a picture of the Anglo-Saxon representation of Jesus on their wall, and wear that little fish symbol on their suit jacket. Be wise. Don’t judge by outward appearances.
Certainly, it is unlikely that a person wearing a t-shirt that proclaims “White Zombie, 666” is going to be a born again blood bought Christian, but don’t be taken in by someone wearing a “Jesus Saves” t-shirt either. Judge a righteous judgment.
15 Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:
Psalm 125:5 As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the LORD shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity: but peace shall be upon Israel.
There is a list of what forwardness and evil lead mankind to in the end of the first chapter of Romans.
Romans 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
And again, a list of the kind of people who shall reject Christ.
1 Corinthians 6:9 ¶ Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
(Remember that “will” is used in regard to a choice and “shall” is a consequence of that choice. For instance, as an aside, in Revelation 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. God will dwell with them and as a consequence they shall be his people and by dwelling with them, as a consequence God shall be with them.)
And again in Galatians crooked paths are revealed.
Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Even in the Christian Church the birds of the air, representing devilish forces, will take shade in its branches as it says in Mark 4:32. (Remember, the corresponding version of this parable in Matthew 13 refers to the evil of the kings in Christ’s millennium who will rise at the first beckoning of the released Satan and the devils. They lodge in the physical kingdom of heaven’s, Christ’s millennial kingdom, branches while in Mark’s Kingdom of God which Christ says is not seen and lies within his followers, the devils can only rest in its shadow but that’s another lesson.)
Here are some crooked ways found in the Christian church at the end of its history.
2 Timothy 3:1 ¶ This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
God has given us sufficient warning to avoid the crooked ways of evil men. Notice in many verses how God hates the way the poor are treated and the ways of violent men. These are the crooked and froward ways of the evil man and woman.
16 To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;
In Bible parlance, a stranger is a foreigner to Israel.
2Chronicles 6:32 Moreover concerning the stranger, which is not of thy people Israel, but is come from a far country for thy great name’s sake, and thy mighty hand, and thy stretched out arm; if they come and pray in this house;
Ezekiel 14:7 For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel,…
Foreign women were the biggest curse to the children of Israel and introduced all sorts of pagan religious ideals and gods and practices which brought the Israelites down. From Balaam’s counsel;
Numbers 31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? 16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
To Solomon’s folly;
1Kings 11:1 But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;
1Kings 11:8 And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.
There is a principle in the Bible that the one who belongs to God is not to be unequally yoked to one who does not. Like two oxen in a yoke, they can’t plow a field if both are going in different directions.
2Corinthians 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
Amos puts it this way.
Amos 3:3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
According to Snell’s “Life in the Ancient Near East”, the woman of the ancient Near East, no matter what her social class, was expected to at some point in her life upon reaching her age of adult responsibilities deposit herself in some temple of the version of the goddess in her land and wait for someone to toss a coin into her lap in order to have intimate relations with her.
These religions, including that of Canaan, included child sacrifice, bestiality, incest, and pedophilia. The ancient religions were riddled with it so much so that the Greek historian, Herodotus, makes the claim in his work that the Persians learned their love of one particular perversion from his people.
Foreign woman were the great polluters of Ancient Israel, most of them not being like Ruth but more like Jezebel, bringing their foreign gods and practices with them and lowering the standards of the Hebrews, encouraging them to violate every commandment.
Strange can also refer to someone who has taken on the airs and ideas of the pagan nations around. We have many so called Christian girls in our society who are worldly, carnal, and who totally embrace the ways of the pagan world, then poison other youths within the church with their ideals. You can make yourself seem strange or foreign, as Joseph did to his brothers in order to disguise his true identity.
Genesis 42:7 And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly unto them; and he said unto them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food.
Here, in this verse in Proverbs, we seem to have a woman who may be a Hebrew, but has adopted the morals of the pagan, just as we have in the Christian church today, if they were ever taught Godly moral behavior at all. She flatters the simple youth, lacking in experience or discipline, who himself may not have been taught properly. So, now, let’s narrow this down even further. We are talking here about an immoral woman who has adopted the ways of the heathen.
17 Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.
And here is the evidence that she is a Hebrew, or by application to us, a Christian girl raised in church. She has forsaken and forgotten the covenant of her God, the guide of her youth. She has turned her back on the Bible and its precepts. She has rejected what is right and cares about only what she wants. She has become a devil in the flesh. Now, she wants to bring someone else down to her level.
This is the church in the last days of history. Read 2 Timothy 3:1-5. Young men and women have turned their back on the guide of their youth and forgotten the covenant of their God. There is no one more willing to lead you down the wrong path than a Christian who has quenched the Holy Spirit in their lives. Just as in history, the most dangerous men have been apostate Jews, in love with the world, and even rejecting their own people as the Catholic Conversos did in the Spanish Inquisition. They were the most virulent Jew haters, the ones who had been born Jews.
Remember, young people. Beware of so called “former Christians”. There are some, even in IFB churches, that have turned their backs on Christ and are just living a culture of Christianity, reveling in their own sin, wallowing in their own filth, and yet making a pretense of spirituality.
18 For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25 will give us a clear warning.
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
I believe this verse goes far beyond the limited historical application and leads us into a theological perspective where paganism and heathenism and non-Biblical Christianity. These religions lead to death. They are manifestations of Satan’s feminine side, the Goddess Ishtar, as many ancient gods, who we know were all Satan in disguise, had a masculine and a feminine form. Goddess worship leads to death and destruction and Satan has deceived the entire world.
Mankind turned their back on God and the covenant’s He made with them a long time ago. They have embraced enticing, attractive, comely, and deadly philosophies and religions. Only Christ can save.
Her ways lead to death. They aren’t simply immorality but idolatry. The modern religion is be nice, and it’s all good, and it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe something. On the other side are murderers and empire builders. Just as the American Neo-conservative, descended from Stalin’s Soviet beliefs, wants American business and politics to cover the entire earth, the Islamist sees that one day the banner of Islam will fly over every capital of the world. From murderers to smarmy snake oil salesman like Joel Osteen or Benny Hinn, it’s all against what the Bible teaches is right and the path of God.
All roads don’t lead to Rome. They lead to Hell. Or, as the famous rock song says, “This ain’t no upwardly mobile freeway, this is the road to Hell.”
Don’t walk away from the Bible, even if someone charismatic or apparently righteous beckons you to do so or if someone who has a worldly or fleshy appeal to you entices you. The end result is death.
19 None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
This is a general rule and not a dogmatic statement. When you read things like this keep in mind verses like;
Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
Apparently, Enoch nor Elijah died and were judged afterwards, according to Scripture. So the verse, while true, is not applicable in 100% of circumstances.
People who walk after false religion, as people who walk after sin, lured away by sensual promises of personal spiritual power or personal carnal pleasure usually slide down the proverbial slippery slope to death after a lifetime of ignorance, having been led like a sacrificial animal to the slaughter, unaware or uncaring of their eventual destruction.
Those people who follow “her path” will not take hold on the paths of life. Here is a list of the following people who identify with a certain sin and by their identification, as a consequence of their believing things like “I am a party animal” or “I am a swinger” or “I am a gay person” or “fillintheblank is what I am and I can’t help myself, take it or leave it” will not receive Christ as their Saviour. Their own will results in a shall.
1 Corinthians 6:9 ¶ Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
20 That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
Here is a plea to follow good men, not the bad. That is not a popular sentiment in our modern culture.
Psalm 12:8 The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
It is interesting to note that this verse in Psalms comes immediately after the verses that deal with God’s preservation of His word. Perhaps we could add, “when the vilest men are exalted” in the church.
Do right. Follow the way of right.
21 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. 22 But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
Clearly this verse applies to Christ’s reign on earth as the wicked have no more in history been cut off from the earth than the good. The Hellbound writer, Ernest Hemingway, said in his book, A Farewell to Arms, the world breaks every one, the good and the bad, only it makes more of an effort in breaking the good. God promised the Jews, if they had obeyed Him, that He would give them success and prosperity in the land. The wicked would have been driven from a pure nation of Israel but it was not to be. However, when Christ rules on earth, the wicked will be cut off from the earth. When Satan is loosed, though, it doesn’t take long for the leaders whom Christ has permitted to lead, the birds of the air in Matthew 13:32 lodging in the uppermost branches of the Kingdom of Heaven to rise up against Him, only to be destroyed by Him. Read Psalm, chapter 2 on that.
Here, along with the verses that show perfect to be complete, we have upright and perfect linked as synonyms. What are some traits we can find about the upright man or woman?
They keep themselves from iniquity.
2Samuel 22:24 I was also upright before him, and have kept myself from mine iniquity.
They fear God and avoid evil.
Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
They are pure.
Job 8:6 If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.
They are righteous, as in verse 20.
Psalm 33:1 Rejoice in the LORD, O ye righteous: for praise is comely for the upright.
Their end is peace.
Psalm 37:37 Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.
There are many other statements about the upright man, the most perfect example of which would be Jesus Christ just as the ultimate example of the wicked in human form would be the Beast of Revelation. You can find more information out about God and Jesus Christ, as well as about Satan and his wicked servant, in the Bible than anything else. If you read every verse looking for clues, character identification, and nature you’ll find out everything about the Beast but the color of his socks almost. Particularly pay attention to the words “the wicked”.
Although these verses are something that can be easily applied as a promise under the Law, we can see it coming afar off, as we wait expectantly for Christ’s return. Satan and his Beast, his anti-Christ will be removed from the earth.