The European Union in Prophecy The EU in Prophecy I | Page 85

The European Union in Prophecy
count the victory already won. At last the army of Procopius made a stand, and
turning upon the foe, advanced to give them battle. The crusaders, now discovering
their mistake, lay in their encampment awaiting the onset. As the sound of the
approaching force was heard, even before the Hussites were in sight, a panic again
fell upon the crusaders. Princes, generals, and common soldiers, casting away their
armor, fled in all directions. In vain the papal legate, who was the leader of the
invasion, endeavoured to rally his terrified and disorganized forces.
Despite his utmost endeavours, he himself was swept along in the tide of
fugitives. The rout was complete, and again an immense booty fell into the hands of
the victors. Thus the second time a vast army, sent forth by the most powerful nations
of Europe, a host of brave, warlike men, trained and equipped for battle, fled without
a blow before the defenders of a small and hitherto feeble nation. Here was a
manifestation of divine power. The invaders were smitten with a supernatural terror.
He who overthrew the hosts of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, who put to flight the armies
of Midian before Gideon and his three hundred, who in one night laid low the forces
of the proud Assyrian, had again stretched out His hand to wither the power of the
oppressor. "There were they in great fear, where no fear was: for God hath scattered
the bones of him that encampeth against thee: thou hast put them to shame, because
God hath despised them." Psalm 53:5.
The papal leaders, despairing of conquering by force, at last resorted to
diplomacy. A compromise was entered into, that while professing to grant to the
Bohemians freedom of conscience, really betrayed them into the power of Rome. The
Bohemians had specified four points as the condition of peace with Rome: the free
preaching of the Bible; the right of the whole church to both the bread and the wine
in the communion, and the use of the mother tongue in divine worship; the exclusion
of the clergy from all secular offices and authority; and, in cases of crime, the
jurisdiction of the civil courts over clergy and laity alike. The papal authorities at last
"agreed that the four articles of the Hussites should be accepted, but that the right of
explaining them, that is, of determining their precise import, should belong to the
council--in other words, to the pope and the emperor."-- Wylie, b. 3, ch. 18. On this
basis a treaty was entered into, and Rome gained by dissimulation and fraud what
she had failed to gain by conflict; for, placing her own interpretation upon the Hussite
articles, as upon the Bible, she could pervert their meaning to suit her own purposes.
84