A little over 370 years ago in England, a Seventh Day Baptist by the name of James Ockford ignited a firestorm over his work “The Doctrine of the Fourth Commandment as Deformed by Popery.” Parliament did not approve of the call to repentance on the Fourth Commandment. On March 8th 1649, Parliament declared the book “Erroneous Scandalous and Profane" and all copies were ordered burned while the man was ordered to be imprisoned. Religious liberty was definitely not established in England at the time. All copies were indeed burned but one sole copy survived and was kept at Christ's church in England.
I had first heard about the story while watching the Seventh Day Adventist documentary “The Seventh Day” hosted by Hal Holbrook. Well the idea came, perhaps that sole surviving document could be photographed and made into an audiobook or preserved in digital form. In the fall of 2022 a journey began by reaching out to Christ’s church and Oxford to try and obtain photographs of the book itself. Initially there were some doubts, the conservator would need to be contacted for approval and there was question if the book was in adequate condition to be photographed. A few days later and several prayers later, I received news that the conservator had approved and the work had been assessed. There was a modest cost associated with obtaining the images to cover the work and publication approval, but after about a month I received a link to the high resolution images of all 80 pages of the book. Since then, the book has been recorded in audio format and is now available on YouTube for the first time in 370 years.
I would like to invite the reader to join me in giving praise to God, that although the truth promulgated by James Ockford was suppressed and the man imprisoned, his last remaining work has survived and the truth goes on. All glory be to God on high for how he preserves righteousness!
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“Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).