Morning, November 5, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“No weapon that is formed against you will prosper.” — Isaiah 54:17

This day is notable in English history for two great deliverances performed by God for us. On this day the plot of the Catholics to destroy our Houses of Parliament was discovered, in 1605.

“While for our princes they prepare

In caverns deep a burning snare,

He shot from heaven a piercing ray,

And the dark treachery brought to day.”

And secondly–today is the anniversary of the landing of King William III, at Torbay, by which the hope of Catholic ascendancy was crushed, and religious liberty was secured, in 1688.

This day ought to be celebrated, not by the celebrations of adolescents, but by the songs of saints. Our Puritan forefathers most piously made it a special time of thanksgiving. There is surviving a record of the annual sermons preached by Matthew Henry on this day. Our Protestant feeling, and our love of liberty, should make us regard its anniversary with holy gratitude. Let our hearts and lips exclaim, “We have heard with our ears, and our fathers have told us the wondrous things which you did in their day, and in the old times before them.” You have made this nation the home of the gospel; and when the foe has risen against her, you have shielded her. Help us to offer repeated songs for repeated deliverance. Grant us more and more a hatred of Antichrist, and hurry on towards the day of her entire extinction. Till then and forever, we believe the promise, “No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper.” Should it not be laid on this day upon the heart of every lover of the gospel of Jesus to plead for the overturning of false doctrines and the expansion of divine truth? Would it not be well to search our own hearts, and turn out any religious plodding of self-righteousness which may lie concealed there?