Chapter 15 . The French Revolution
In the sixteenth century the Reformation , presenting an open Bible to the people , had sought admission to all the countries of Europe . Some nations welcomed it with gladness , as a messenger of Heaven . In other lands the papacy succeeded to a great extent in preventing its entrance ; and the light of Bible knowledge , with its elevating influences , was almost wholly excluded . In one country , though the light found entrance , it was not comprehended by the darkness . For centuries , truth and error struggled for the mastery . At last the evil triumphed , and the truth of Heaven was thrust out . " This is the condemnation , that light is come into the world , and men loved darkness rather than light ." John 3:19 . The nation was left to reap the results of the course which she had chosen . The restraint of God ' s Spirit was removed from a people that had despised the gift of His grace . Evil was permitted to come to maturity . And all the world saw the fruit of willful rejection of the light .
The war against the Bible , carried forward for so many centuries in France , culminated in the scenes of the Revolution . That terrible outbreaking was but the legitimate result of Rome ' s suppression of the Scriptures . It presented the most striking illustration which the world has ever witnessed of the working out of the papal policy-- an illustration of the results to which for more than a thousand years the teaching of the Roman Church had been tending . The suppression of the Scriptures during the period of papal supremacy was foretold by the prophets ; and the Revelator points also to the terrible results that were to accrue especially to France from the domination of the " man of sin ."
Said the angel of the Lord : " The holy city shall they tread underfoot 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 .
The periods here mentioned-- " forty and two months ," and " a thousand two hundred and threescore days " --are the same , alike representing the time in which the church of Christ was to suffer oppression from Rome . The 1260 years of papal supremacy began in A . D . 538 , and would therefore terminate in 1798 . ( See Appendix note for page 54 .) At that time a French army entered Rome and made the pope a prisoner , and he died in exile . Though a new pope was soon afterward elected , the papal hierarchy has never since been able to wield the power which it before possessed .
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