This is it!  We’ve come to the conclusion of our series! We hope that you can say with us, “It was good!” In the last few weeks, we have been both challenged and humbled by the lives of some remarkable women of the church. History confirms it. The women of the Reformation were every bit as invested in the gospel as the men were. Just as the Lord raised a line of mighty men for this hour in history, He also had a succession of godly women called for “such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).

The Word of God tells us that Christians are to “stir one another up to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24).  But how do we do this?  Two ways. First, through the fellowship of the living saints. Hebrews 10:25 says “encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Second, through the encouragement of the dead. If ever there were a biblical mandate to study church history it is found in Hebrews Chapter 11. While the author of Hebrews could not have known, the women of the Reformation are among those numbered in that “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1).  As we look to the lives of  these church mothers, we are inspired to “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely” and to “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). I don’t know about you, but I’m sure looking forward to meeting some of these saints in glory and hearing all about the grace of God!

At the onset of our series, we explained our little endeavor to be barely a scratch on the surface when it comes to covering the whole of the contributions made by our sisters.  To that end, we want to encourage you to pursue your own studies!  I think we’ve proven that when we study the lives of the saints who have gone before us our hearts are strengthened and our faith is increased.  We are reminded that the same God who was with them, is also with us! As it is written, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

As we pass the gospel flame of the Reformation to the next generation, may we view the world through the lenses of His divine providence, and the furtherance of the gospel.  And, may the words of Romans 11:36 be inscribed across our hearts, just as it was our Reformation sisters, “For from him and through him and to him are all things.” Amen.

And now, for the winners….Can I have a drum roll, please?

The winner of Roland H. Bainton’s, “Women of the Reformation in Germany and Italy” is…….“Rachel”

The winner of Roland Bainton’s, “Women of the Reformation in France and England” is………“Christina Lum” 

The winner of Susan Hunt’s “Spiritual Mothering: The Titus 2 Model for Women Mentoring Women”  is……“Nohemi Lugo” 

The winner of Roland Bainton’s “Women of the Reformation: From Spain to Scandinavia” is……“Jayneen” 

The winner of Diana Lyn Severance’s “Feminine Threads: Women in the Tapestry of Christian History” is….“Amy”

Congratulations ladies!

Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for joining us, and celebrating the beautiful legacy of the women of the Reformation. May the Lord bless you!

The sun never shone on a nobler band of women than those who labored in the Reformation. There is little need of literary embellishment, their sublime faith and heroic deeds throw a halo of glory around them, and they stand with the Master on the mount of transfiguration. The simple story of their unselfish lives comes to us across the centuries with power and pathos to stir the dullest heart to sentiments of gratitude and veneration. Remarkable alike for their great personal charms, extraordinary leadership, masterly mental powers, sublime heroism, and entire consecration to God and humanity, the women of the sixteenth century have never been equaled. – Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer

IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS FOR BOOK WINNERS:   Kindly send an email to christinalangella@me.com.  In the “Subject” field please type in the name of the book.  In the body of the email please enter your name and the address where you would like the book to be sent. Dankeschön.

There’s a never-ending tension between what we profess to believe and what we put into practice. Catherine of Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk, knew this very well. Born in 1520 and named after Catherine of Aragon, she married, at just 15, Brandon Willoughby, the grandfather of Lady Jane Grey, and the favorite courtier of King Henry VIII. Stephen Gardiner, Queen Mary’s henchman, was her godfather, and Hugh Latimer gave her spiritual counsel, even preaching his sermons on the Lord’s Prayer at her estate. Her closest confidant was William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth’s chief advisor for most of her reign.

Born into a Catholic home, it’s unclear when Catherine converted to the Reformed faith, though we do know that she was passionate about sharing the gospel with those in her county and was frustrated with Queen Elizabeth’s slow reforms in the Church, a Church she considered to be just “a shadow of the Roman church.”

In John Strype’s Ecclesiastical Memorials, Catherine is described as “very active in seconding the efforts of government to abolish superfluous Holy Days, to remove images and relics from churches, to destroy shrines and other monuments of idolatry and superstition, to put an end to pilgrimages, to reform the clergy, to see that every church had provided, in some convenient place, a copy of the large Bible, to stir up the Bishops, vicars and curates to diligence in preaching against the usurped authority of the Pope; in inculcating upon all the reading of the Scriptures, and especially the young, the Pater Noster, the Articles of Faith and the Ten Commandments in English.”

In 1551, Willoughby suffered the loss of her first two sons, who died from a “sweating sickness” that swept through their college. Her submission to this hard providence is most admirable.

I give thanks, good Master Cecil, for all His benefits which it hath pleased Him to heap upon me; and truly I take this last (and to the first sight most sharp and bitter) punishment not for the least of His benefits, inasmuch as I have never been so well taught by any other to know His power, His love and mercy, mine own weakness and that wretched state that without Him I should endure here.

After the death of her first husband, Catherine married Richard Bertie, a devout Puritan. It was with him that she fled to the Netherlands and later Poland to avoid execution under Queen Mary. However, the reasons for her persecution by Gardiner are a bit muddied, considering Catherine’s previous public humiliation of him. Was he pursuing Catherine because of her Reformed faith or because of a thirst for revenge? Speaking of Catherine to Bertie, Gardiner asks,

..is she now as ready to set up the mass as she was lately to pull it down, when she caused a dog in a rochet to be carried and called by my name? Or doth she think her lambs now safe enough which said to me when I veiled my bonnet to her out of the chamber window in the Tower, that it was merry with the lambs now that the wolf was shut up?

Though their four years in exile was certainly difficult and full of hardships, God’s mercies were abundant. He gave them a second child and blessed them with a leadership position in Poland, a country which was mostly Protestant at the time.

When Richard and Catherine returned to England, Queen Elizabeth was on the throne and many personal challenges lay ahead. It’s in Catherine’s letters that we see much of her struggle with God’s sovereignty. She doesn’t speak against Providence, but her actions show the wrestlings and wranglings of an anxious heart. Her days appear to be spent in frustration over the slow reforms in the Church, in battling for Titles for her husband and son-in-law, in procuring the Queen’s approval for her son’s marriage, and in vexation over a disagreeable daughter-in-law. One biographer found her behavior such a betrayal to her faith that he declared it would have been better for Christian posterity  “would that she had died younger.”

Yet, even in the last letter we have in which Catherine is pleading with Cecil about her son, she affirms her belief in God’s best:

Wherefore but God’s will be fulfilled, who worketh all for the best to them that love and fear Him; wherefore were not that hope of Him thoroughly settled in me, I think my very heart would burst for sorrow.

A wise man said that we cannot determine a man’s character by one act. Surely those of us who have fully tasted God’s grace recognize what mangled pieces of clay we are, in desperate need of God’s refining fire and His endless mercies. We would not dismiss Catherine because she failed to finish as we hope and expect. Instead let her failings encourage us to remember that the bigger sacrifice often comes, not in doing “big things” for God, but in the daily dying to self in the midst of hard providences.

May our surrender to God’s sovereign care over us be not only words put to paper or stimulating discussions around the dinner table, but rather a truth so firmly impressed in our hearts and minds and souls that we radiate the beauty of a mortified self to the world around us. Let us be instruments of His grace to each other, offering encouragement and prayers to finish well, yet ready to pick each other up when we fall.

Most importantly, let us never forget that the theology we profess must take hold of our hearts and transform how we live. This is at the heart of the Reformation, too, and perhaps in her failings, Catherine teaches us the best lessons.

The next post in this series is Anne Askew by Diane Bucknell

About the Author: Trisha Poff rejoices in the God of her salvation. Her life is nothing but a multitude of His mercies, and she delights in being the wife to her Mountain Man and a Mama to eight blessings from the LORD. She’s a bibliophile who loves the Word, chocolate and pens, and making the ordinary extraordinary. You’ll find her trying to tell of God’s wondrous works with a voice of thanksgiving (Psalm 26:7) at The Good Life.

Sources:

1. Five Women of the Reformation by Paul Zahl
2. My Lady Suffolk by Evelyn Read

 

England’s Nine Day Queen grew up as a princess, and being of royal lineage (she was the granddaughter of Mary Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII) had a very strict and rigorous education. Under the authority of her stiff parents, who were proud to give Jane an education that was without a doubt, a preparation for the crown, she grew in England during a time of political and religious instability.

As we read about Jane’s life, we see how this woman understood that God is Sovereign over all circumstances, and how this understanding helped her to learn contentment while seeing God’s hand over her circumstances no matter how difficult they might be.

Consider, for example, how she refers to the extreme rigorous education she received from her parents:

One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me is, that he sent me so sharp and severe parents and so gentle schoolmaster: for when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing any thing else, I must do it as it were such weight, measure and number, even so perfectly as God made the world…(1)

Her parents mistreated her physically and emotionally even to the point in which she said “I think myself in hell, till time come that I must go to Mr. Aylmer.”(2)

Mr. Aylmer was Lady Jane’s tutor; he inspired Jane to live and learn. She enjoyed studying under his tutelage to the point that she became proficient in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian even in her early teen years. It is also known that her strong Protestant convictions were also implanted by her tutor who was a wonderful and avid theologian, as well as from Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli’s successor in Switzerland with whom she corresponded regularly (3),and with Martin Bucer, “to whom she confessed herself much indebted.”(4) She also said once that it was him (Bucer) who led her “forward in all probity, piety, and sound learning.”(5)

Of Mr. Aylmer she said, “[He] teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because whatsoever I do else but learning is full of grief, trouble, fear, and wholly misliking to me…” (6)

This kind of rigorous education and her strong desire to study, and understand Theology prepared her for the trials that were to come.

When King Edward VI died, Mary (known later as Bloody Mary) was the rightful heir to the throne. She was Catholic and her ascent to the throne was not what the Reformers wanted, as they knew that she would try to end the rising of the Reformation in England. The only option some of them saw as a possible solution was to raise Lady Jane Grey to the throne. Lady Jane Grey, however, “wept, swooned, and protested that if any one should scruple to steal a shilling how much more to usurp a crown”. (7) However, her parents did not listen to her arguments and wanting her to wear the crown, forced her to do so. Lady Jane Grey was only sixteen years old.

Mary’s forces easily took Lady Jane Grey and all those who supported her and placed them in the Tower of London. This was the beginning of Mary’s Reign of Terror. Lady Jane Grey wrote a letter to Queen Mary in which she “freely confessed that she had committed in accepting from those deemed wise by all the realm, a crown which was not theirs to bestow”. (8) Mary was moved by it, and was even willing to show mercy to Jane Grey only if she accepted to take the Catholic Mass; Mary even sent her archbishop to try to convince Lady Jane Grey to accept the sacraments of the Catholic faith. Lady Jane Grey stood firmly on the principle of Sola Scriptura and justification by faith alone; thus rejecting any other means of salvation saying:

I deny that (good works as a mean to obtain salvation), and I affirm that faith only saves; but it is meet for a Christian to do good works, in token that he follows the steps of His Master, Christ, yet may we not say that we profit to our salvation; for when we have done all, we are unprofitable servants, and faith only in Christ’s blood saves us. (9)

Lady Jane Grey was young but she was strong in her faith and convictions; and even though she had been promised life and not death by a human, she would rather die and have the Life that God promises to those who stand firm to the end.

Jane Grey wrote then a letter to her father in which she said,

Father, although it has pleased God to hasten my death by you, by whom my life should rather have been lengthened, yet I can so patiently take it, as I yield God more hearty thanks for shortening my woeful days, than if all the world had been given unto my possession… to me there is nothing than can be more welcome, than from this vale of misery to aspire to that heavenly throne of all joy and pleasure with Christ our Saviour… (10)

Two days after her meeting with Mary’s archbishop, on February 12, 1154, Lady Jane Grey was martyred for her beliefs as well as for political reasons. But before mounting on the scaffold, she asked the chaplain if she could recite Psalm fifty-one, and then pronounced her last words:

I here die a true Christian woman and I trust to be saved by the blood of Christ, and by no other means. (11)

This young woman stood firmly, facing death, not with a bitter heart against her earthly father, or against the Queen, but with her eyes fixed on Eternity, on Jesus Christ. Her heart had not been set on earthly treasures but on the things that are not from this world; and her hope did not rest in her actions, but on the saving work of Jesus Christ.

It is my prayer that I would die reciting the Word of God, and saying the same words that this woman of faith spoke without trembling.

Today Becky will be giving away 1 copy of Feminine Threads: Women in the Tapestry of Christian History by Diana Lyn Severance.  Please leave a comment to let us know that you are interested. International entries ok.  Winners will be announced next week at the conclusion of our series.

The next post in this series is Catherine of Willoughby by Trisha Poff

About the Author: Becky Pliego is Mexican, living in one of the busiest cities in the world. She is the wife of one man, the mother of four children, and a friend to many. She enjoys homeschooling her children and baking muffins for her family on a Saturday morning. Coffee, chocolate and a good book are always a good company to her. Becky blogs regularly at Daily on My Way to Heaven.

Sources: 

(1) Roland H. Bainton, Women of the Reformation in France and England (Kindle ed.)
(2) ibid
(3) Stephen J. Nichols The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World (Crossway Books) Kindle ed. Loc 1746-53
(4)Roland H. Bainton, Women of the Reformation in France and England (Kindle ed.)
(5) ibid
(6) ibid
(7) ibid
(8) ibid.
(9) Stephen J. Nichols, The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World (Crossway Books), Kindle ed. Loc 1781-89
(10) Roland H. Bainton Women of the Reformation in France and England (Kindle ed.)
(11) ibid loc.1781-89