Chapter 15—France’s Reign of Terror: Its True Cause
Some nations welcomed the Reformation as a messenger of Heaven. In other lands the light of Bible knowledge was almost wholly excluded. In one country truth and error struggled for centuries for the mastery. At last the truth of Heaven was thrust out. The restraint of God’s Spirit was removed from a people that had despised the gift of His grace. And all the world saw the fruit of wilful rejection of light.
(HF 166.1)
The war against the Bible in France culminated in the Revolution, the legitimate result of Rome’s suppression of the Scriptures. (See Appendix) It presented the most striking illustration ever witnessed of the working out of the teaching of the Roman Church.
(HF 166.2)
The Revelator points to the terrible results that were to accrue especially to France from the domination of the “man of sin”:
(HF 166.3)
“The holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.... And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.... And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.” Revelation 11:2-11.
(HF 166.4)
The “forty and two months” and “a thousand two hundred and threescore days” are the same, the time in which the church of Christ was to suffer oppression from Rome. The 1260 years began in A.D. 538 and terminated in 1798. (See Appendix) At that time a French army made the pope a prisoner, and he died in exile. The papal hierarchy has never since been able to wield the power before possessed.
(HF 167.1)
The persecution of the church did not continue throughout the entire 1260 years. God in mercy to His people cut short the time of their fiery trial through the influence of the Reformation.
(HF 167.2)
The “two witnesses” represent the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament, important testimonies to the origin and perpetuity of the law of God, and also to the plan of salvation.
(HF 167.3)
“They shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.” When the Bible was proscribed, its testimony perverted; when those who dared proclaim its truths were betrayed, tortured, martyred for their faith or compelled to flee—then the faithful “witnesses” prophesied “in sackcloth.” In the darkest times faithful men were given wisdom and authority to declare God’s truth. (See Appendix)
(HF 167.4)
“And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.” Revelation 11:5. Men cannot with impunity trample upon the Word of God!
(HF 167.5)
“When they shall have finished [are finishing] their testimony.” As the two witnesses were approaching the termination of their work in obscurity, war was to be made upon them by “the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit.” Here is brought to view a new manifestation of satanic power.
(HF 167.6)
It had been Rome’s policy, professing reverence for the Bible, to keep it locked up in an unknown tongue, hidden from the people. Under her rule the witnesses prophesied “clothed in sackcloth.” But “the beast from the bottomless pit” was to make open, avowed war upon the Word of God.
(HF 168.1)
“The great city” in whose streets the witnesses are slain, and where their dead bodies lie is “spiritually” Egypt. Of all nations in Bible history, Egypt most boldly denied the existence of the living God and resisted His commands. No monarch ever ventured upon more highhanded rebellion against Heaven than did the king of Egypt, Pharaoh: “I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.” Exodus 5:2, ARV. This is atheism; and the nation represented by Egypt would voice a similar denial of God and manifest a like spirit of defiance.
(HF 168.2)
“The great city” is also compared, “spiritually,” to Sodom. The corruption of Sodom was especially manifested in licentiousness. This sin was also to be a characteristic of the nation that should fulfill this scripture.
(HF 168.3)
According to the prophet, then, a little before 1798 some power of satanic character would rise to war upon the Bible. And in the land where the testimony of God’s “two witnesses” should thus be silenced, there would be manifest the atheism of Pharaoh and the licentiousness of Sodom.
(HF 168.4)
This prophecy received a striking fulfillment in the history of France during the Revolution, in 1793. “France stands apart in the world’s history as the single state which, by the decree of her Legislative Assembly, pronounced that there was no God, and of which the entire population of the capital, and a vast majority elsewhere, women as well as men, danced and sang with joy in accepting the announcement.”
(HF 168.5)
France presented also the characteristics which distinguished Sodom. The historian presents together the atheism and the licentiousness of France: “Intimately connected with these laws affecting religion, was that which reduced the union of marriage—the most sacred engagement which human beings can form, and the permanence of which leads most strongly to the consolidation of society—to the state of a mere civil contract of a transitory character, which any two persons might engage in and cast loose at pleasure.... Sophie Arnoult, an actress famous for the witty things she said, described the republican marriage as ”the sacrament of adultery.’”
(HF 168.6)
“Where also our Lord was crucified.” This was also fulfilled by France. In no country had the truth encountered more cruel opposition. In the persecution visited upon the confessors of the gospel France had crucified Christ in the person of His disciples.
(HF 169.1)
Century after century the blood of the saints had been shed. While the Waldenses laid down their lives on the mountains of Piedmont “for the testimony of Jesus Christ,” similar witness had been borne by the Albigenses of France. The disciples of the Reformation had been put to death with horrible tortures. King and nobles, highborn women and delicate maidens had feasted their eyes on the agonies of the martyrs of Jesus. The brave Huguenots had poured out their blood on many a hard-fought field, hunted down like wild beasts.
(HF 169.2)
The few descendants of the ancient Christians that still lingered in France in the eighteenth century, hiding away in the mountains of the south, cherished the faith of their fathers. They were dragged away to lifelong slavery in the galleys. The most refined and intelligent of the French were chained, in horrible torture, amidst robbers and assassins. Others were shot down in cold blood as they fell upon their knees in prayer. Their country, laid waste with the sword, the axe, the fagot, “was converted into one vast, gloomy wilderness.”“These atrocities were enacted ... in no dark age, but in the brilliant era of Louis XIV. Science was then cultivated, letters flourished, the divines of the court and of the capital were learned and eloquent men, and greatly affected the graces of meekness and charity.”
(HF 169.3)
But most horrible among the fiendish deeds of the dreadful centuries was the St. Bartholomew Massacre. The king of France, urged on by priests and prelates, lent his sanction. A bell, tolling at dead of night, was a signal for the slaughter. Protestants by thousands, sleeping in their homes, trusting the honor of their king, were dragged forth and murdered.
(HF 170.1)
For seven days the massacre continued in Paris. By order of the king it was extended to all towns where Protestants were found. Noble and peasant, old and young, mother and child, were cut down together. Throughout France 70,000 of the flower of the nation perished.
(HF 170.2)
“When the news of the massacre reached Rome, the exultation among the clergy knew no bounds. The cardinal of Lorraine rewarded the messenger with a thousand crowns; the cannon of St. Angelo thundered forth a joyous salute; and bells rang out from every steeple; bonfires turned night into day; and Gregory XIII, attended by the cardinals and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, went in long procession to the church of St. Louis, where the cardinal of Lorraine chanted a Te Deum.... A medal was struck to commemorate the massacre.... A French priest ... spoke of ‘that day so full of happiness and joy, when the most holy father received the news, and went in solemn state to render thanks to God and St. Louis.’”
(HF 170.3)
The same master spirit that urged on the St. Bartholomew Massacre led in the scenes of the Revolution. Jesus Christ was declared an impostor, and the cry of the French infidels was “Crush the Wretch,” meaning Christ. Blasphemy and wickedness went hand in hand. In all this, homage was paid to Satan, while Christ, in His characteristics of truth, purity, and unselfish love, was “crucified.”
(HF 170.4)
“The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.” Revelation 11:7. The atheistic power that ruled in France during the Revolution and the Reign of Terror did wage such war against God and His Word. The worship of the Deity was abolished by the National Assembly. Bibles were collected and publicly burned. The institutions of the Bible were abolished. The weekly rest day was set aside, and in its stead every tenth day was devoted to reveling. Baptism and the Communion were prohibited. Announcements posted over burial places declared death to be an eternal sleep.
(HF 171.1)
All religious worship was prohibited, except that of “liberty” and the country. The “constitutional bishop of Paris was brought forward ... to declare to the Convention that the religion which he had taught so many years was, in every respect, a piece of priestcraft, which had no foundation either in history or sacred truth. He disowned, in solemn and explicit terms, the existence of the Deity to whose worship he had been consecrated.”
(HF 171.2)
“And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.” Revelation 11:10. Infidel France had silenced the reproving voice of God’s two witnesses. The word of truth lay “dead” in her streets, and those who hated God’s law were jubilant. Men publicly defied the King of heaven.
(HF 171.3)
One of the “priests” of the new order said: “God, if You exist, avenge Your injured name. I bid You defiance! You remain silent; You dare not launch Your thunders. Who after this will believe in Your existence?” What an echo is this of Pharaoh’s demand: “Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his voice?”
(HF 171.4)
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” And the Lord declares, “Their folly shall be manifest unto all.” Psalm 14:1; 2 Timothy 3:9. After France had renounced the worship of the living God she descended to degrading idolatry by the worship of the Goddess of Reason, a profligate woman. And this in the representative assembly of the nation! “One of the ceremonies of this insane time stands unrivaled for absurdity combined with impiety. The doors of the Convention were thrown open.... The members of the municipal body entered in solemn procession, singing a hymn in praise of liberty, and escorting, as the object of their future worship, a veiled female, whom they termed the Goddess of Reason. Being brought within the bar, she was unveiled with great form, and placed on the right of the president, when she was generally recognized as a dancing girl of the opera.”
(HF 172.1)
“The installation of the Goddess of Reason was renewed and imitated throughout the nation, in such places where the inhabitants desired to show themselves equal to all the heights of the Revolution.”
(HF 172.2)
When the “goddess” was brought into the Convention, the orator took her by the hand, and turning to the assembly said: “‘Mortals, cease to tremble before the powerless thunders of a God whom your fears have created. Henceforth acknowledge no divinity but Reason. I offer you its noblest and purest image; if you must have idols, sacrifice only to such as this... .’”
(HF 172.3)
“The goddess, after being embraced by the president, was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted to the cathedral of Notre Dame, to take the place of the Deity. There she was elevated on a high altar, and received the adoration of all present.”
(HF 172.4)
Popery began the work which atheism was completing, hurrying France on to ruin. Writers in referring to the horrors of the Revolution say that these excesses are to be charged upon the throne and the church. (See Appendix) In strict justice they are to be charged upon the church. Popery had poisoned the minds of kings against the Reformation. The genius of Rome inspired the cruelty and oppression which proceeded from the throne.
(HF 172.5)
Wherever the gospel was received, the minds of the people were awakened. They began to cast off the shackles that had held them bondslaves of ignorance and superstition. Monarchs saw it and trembled for their despotism.
(HF 173.1)
Rome was not slow to inflame their jealous fears. Said the pope to the regent of France in 1525: “This mania [Protestantism] will not only confound and destroy religion, but all principalities, nobility, laws, orders, and ranks besides.” A papal nuncio warned the king: “The Protestants will upset all civil as well as religious order.... The throne is in as much danger as the altar.” Rome succeeded in arraying France against the Reformation.
(HF 173.2)
The teaching of the Bible would have implanted in the hearts of the people principles of justice, temperance, and truth, which are the cornerstone of a nation’s prosperity. “Righteousness exalteth a nation.” Thereby “the throne is established.” Proverbs 14:34; 16:12. See Isaiah 32:17. He who obeys the divine law will most truly respect and obey the laws of the country. France prohibited the Bible. Century after century men of integrity, of intellectual and moral strength, who had the faith to suffer for truth, toiled as slaves in the galleys, perished at the stake, or rotted in dungeon cells. Thousands found safety in flight for 250 years after the opening of the Reformation.
(HF 173.3)
“Scarcely was there a generation of Frenchmen during that long period that did not witness the disciples of the gospel fleeing before the insane fury of the persecutor, and carrying with them the intelligence, the arts, the industry, the order, in which, as a rule, they pre-eminently excelled, to enrich the lands in which they found an asylum.... If all that was now driven away had been retained in France, what a ... great, prosperous, and happy country—a pattern to the nations—would she have been! But a blind and inexorable bigotry chased from her soil every teacher of virtue, every champion of order, every honest defender of the throne.... At last the ruin of the state was complete.” The Revolution with its horrors was the result.
(HF 173.4)
“With the flight of the Huguenots a general decline settled upon France. Flourishing manufacturing cities fell into decay.... It is estimated that, at the breaking out of the Revolution, two hundred thousand paupers in Paris claimed charity from the hands of the king. The Jesuits alone flourished in the decaying nation.”
(HF 174.1)
The gospel would have brought to France the solution of those problems that baffled her clergy, king, and legislators, and finally plunged the nation into ruin. But under Rome the people had lost the Saviour’s lessons of self-sacrifice and unselfish love for the good of others. The rich had no rebuke for the oppression of the poor; the poor no help for their degradation. The selfishness of the wealthy and powerful grew more and more oppressive. For centuries, the rich wronged the poor, and the poor hated the rich.
(HF 174.2)
In many provinces the laboring classes were at the mercy of landlords and were forced to submit to exhorbitant demands. The middle and lower classes were heavily taxed by the civil authorities and clergy. “The farmers and the peasants might starve, for aught their oppressors cared.... The lives of the agricultural laborers were lives of incessant work and unrelieved misery; their complaints ... were treated with insolent contempt.... Bribes were notoriously accepted by the judges.... Of the taxes, ... not half ever found its way into the royal or episcopal treasury; the rest was squandered in profligate self-indulgence. And the men who thus impoverished their fellow-subjects were themselves exempt from taxation and entitled by law or custom to all the appointments of the state.... For their gratification millions were condemned to hopeless and degrading lives.”(See Appendix)
(HF 174.3)
For more than half a century before the Revolution the throne was occupied by Louis XV, distinguished as an indolent, frivolous, and sensual monarch. With the state financially embarrassed and the people exasperated, it needed no prophet’s eye to foresee a terrible outbreak. In vain the necessity of reform was urged. The doom awaiting France was pictured in the king’s selfish answer, “After me, the deluge!”
(HF 175.1)
Rome had influenced the kings and ruling classes to keep the people in bondage, purposing to fasten both rulers and people in her shackles upon their souls. A thousandfold more terrible than the physical suffering which resulted from her policy was the moral degradation. Deprived of the Bible, and abandoned to selfishness, the people were shrouded in ignorance and sunken in vice, wholly unfitted for self-government.
(HF 175.2)
Instead of holding the masses in blind submission to her dogmas, Rome’s work resulted in making them infidels and revolutionists. Romanism they despised as priestcraft. The only god they knew was the god of Rome. They regarded her greed and cruelty as the fruit of the Bible, and they would have none of it.
(HF 175.3)
Rome had misrepresented the character of God, and now men rejected both the Bible and its Author. In the reaction, Voltaire and his associates cast aside God’s Word altogether and spread infidelity. Rome had ground down the people under her iron heel; and now the masses cast off all restraint. Enraged, they rejected truth and falsehood together.
(HF 175.4)
At the opening of the Revolution, by a concession of the king, the people were granted representation exceeding that of nobles and clergy combined. Thus the balance of power was in their hands; but they were not prepared to use it with wisdom and moderation. An outraged populace resolved to revenge themselves. The oppressed wrought out the lesson they had learned under tyranny and became the oppressors of those who had oppressed them.
(HF 175.5)
France reaped in blood the harvest of her submission to Rome. Where France, under Romanism, had set up the first stake at the opening of the Reformation, there the Revolution set up its first guillotine. On the spot where the first martyrs to the Protestant faith were burned in the sixteenth century, the first victims were guillotined in the eighteenth. When the restraints of God’s law were cast aside, the nation swept on to revolt and anarchy. The war against the Bible stands in world history as the Reign of Terror. He who triumphed today was condemned tomorrow.
(HF 176.1)
King, clergy, and nobles were compelled to submit to the atrocities of a maddened people. Those who decreed the death of the king soon followed him to the scaffold. A general slaughter of all suspected of hostility to the Revolution was determined. France became a vast field for contending masses, swayed by the fury of passions. “In Paris one tumult succeeded another, and the citizens were divided into a medley of factions, that seemed intent on nothing but mutual extermination.... The country was nearly bankrupt, the armies were clamoring for arrears of pay, the Parisians were starving, the provinces were laid waste by brigands, and civilization was almost extinguished in anarchy and license.”
(HF 176.2)
All too well the people had learned the lessons of cruelty and torture which Rome had so diligently taught. It was not now the disciples of Jesus that were dragged to the stake. Long ago these had perished or been driven into exile. “The scaffolds ran red with the blood of the priests. The galleys and the prisons, once crowded with Huguenots, were now filled with their persecutors. Chained to the bench and toiling at the oar, the Roman Catholic clergy experienced all those woes which their church had so freely inflicted on the gentle heretics.”(See Appendix)
(HF 176.3)
“Then came those days ... when spies lurked in every corner; when the guillotine was long and hard at work every morning; when the jails were filled as close as the holds of a slave ship; when the gutters ran foaming with blood into the Seine.... Long rows of captives were mowed down with grapeshot. Holes were made in the bottom of crowded barges.... The number of young lads and of girls of seventeen who were murdered by that execrable government, is to be reckoned by hundreds. Babies torn from the breast were tossed from pike to pike along the Jacobin ranks.”(See Appendix)
(HF 177.1)
All this was as Satan would have it. His policy is deception and his purpose is to bring wretchedness upon men, to deface the workmanship of God, to mar the divine purpose of love, and thus cause grief in heaven. Then by his deceptive arts, he leads men to throw the blame on God, as if all this misery were the result of the Creator’s plan. When the people found Romanism to be a deception, he urged them to regard all religion as a cheat and the Bible as a fable.
(HF 177.2)
The fatal error which wrought such woe for France was the ignoring of this one great truth: true freedom lies within the proscriptions of the law of God. “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” Isaiah 48:18. Those who will not read the lesson from the Book of God are bidden to read it in history.
(HF 177.3)
When Satan wrought through the Roman Church to lead men away from obedience, his work was disguised. By the working of the Spirit of God his purposes were prevented from reaching their full fruition. The people did not trace the effect to its cause and discover the source of their miseries. But in the Revolution the law of God was openly set aside by the National Council. And in the Reign of Terror which followed, the working of cause and effect could be seen by all.
(HF 177.4)
The transgression of a just and righteous law must result in ruin. The restraining Spirit of God, which imposes a check upon the cruel power of Satan, was in a great measure removed, and he whose delight is the wretchedness of men was permitted to work his will. Those who had chosen rebellion were left to reap its fruits. The land was filled with crimes. From devastated provinces and ruined cities a terrible cry was heard of bitter anguish. France was shaken as if by an earthquake. Religion, law, social order, the family, the state, and the church—all were smitten down by the impious hand that had been lifted against the law of God.
(HF 178.1)
God’s faithful witnesses, slain by the blasphemous power that “ascendeth out of the bottomless pit,” were not long to remain silent. “After three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.” Revelation 11:11. In 1793 the decrees which set aside the Bible passed the French Assembly. Three years and a half later a resolution rescinding these decrees was adopted by the same body. Men recognized the necessity of faith in God and His Word as the foundation of virtue and morality.
(HF 178.2)
Concerning the “two witnesses” [the Old and New Testaments] the prophet declares further: “And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.” Revelation 11:12. “God’s two witnesses” have been honored as never before. In 1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society was organized, followed by similar organizations upon the continent of Europe. In 1816 the American Bible Society was founded. The Bible has since been translated into many hundreds of languages and dialects. (See Appendix)
(HF 178.3)
Preceding 1792, little attention was given to foreign missions. But toward the close of the eighteenth century a great change took place. Men became dissatisfied with rationalism and realized the necessity of divine revelation and experimental religion. From this time foreign missions attained unprecedented growth. (See Appendix)
(HF 179.1)
Improvements in printing have given impetus to circulating the Bible. The breaking down of ancient prejudice and national exclusiveness and the loss of secular power by the pontiff of Rome have opened the way for the entrance of the Word of God. The Bible has now been carried to every part of the globe.
(HF 179.2)
The infidel Voltaire said: “I am weary of hearing people repeat that twelve men established the Christian religion. I will prove that one man may suffice to overthrow it.” Millions have joined in the war upon the Bible. But it is far from being destroyed. Where there were a hundred in Voltaire’s time, there are now a hundred thousand copies of the Book of God. In the words of an early Reformer, “The Bible is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.”
(HF 179.3)
Whatever is built upon the authority of man will be overthrown; but that which is founded upon the rock of God’s Word shall stand forever.
(HF 179.4)