"To spread vital religion": a remembrance of Theodore Frelinghuysen, part I

It frequently happens that God, prior to doing a great work of revival and renewal among a community of his people, raises up forerunners and heralds of the work. The best biblical example of this was John the Baptist, whose heart-searching message of repentance prepared the way for the public appearance of Jesus the Messiah and the new covenant established through his death. The sixteenth-century revival of biblical truth, the Reformation, provides another illustration of this fact. This time the forerunners were men such as John Wycliffe (c.1330-1384)—the so-called “Morning star of the Reformation”—and Jan Hus (d.1415), cruelly martyred for his loyalty to biblical convictions.