The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

400 Interpretation in post-Reformation Times.which shall be finished in the beginning of the next age, and then the kingdom ofChrist [the Messiah] shall come upon the earth.”Here is another work published at the same period by one of the exiledHuguenot ministers. Its title runs thus: “A New System of the Apocalypse :written by a French Minister in the year 1685, and finished but two days beforethe dragoons plundered him of all except this Treatise.” The author anticipatedthat the reformed religion overthrown by the revocation of the Edict of Nanteswould be again re-established in three and a half years ; which it was in the mostremarkable manner, though not just as he expected. The great English Revolution,which brought about the re-establishment of Protestantism, followed three and ahalf years after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and these men lived to see it,and to rejoice in it. The author of this little work points out the futurity at that timeof the vials on Papal Rome, in which he was evidently correct. Here is anotherHuguenot work of the same period, written by an exiled minister, describing theway in which all Protestants throughout France had been forbidden, under theseverest penalties, to assemble for the worship of God ; and also forbidden to leavethe country under pain of all galleys, or even condemnation to death. This worktraces in a very remarkable way the similarity of the experience of the reformedChurch in this last great Papal persecution... It contains in an appendix the famousbull of Pope Clement XI., condemning a hundred Jansenist propositions as “false,pernicious, injurious, outrageous, seditious, impious, blasphemous,” etc. Thehundred propositions taken from the works of the Jansenists are given here, andthey are all most excellent and in perfect harmony with the teachings of Scripture.Among them are the following:“Proposition 79. It is useful and necessary at all times, in all places, and forall sorts of persons, to study the Scripture, and to understand its spirit, piety, andmysteries.”“Proposition 84. It is to close to Christian people the mouth of Jesus Christto take from their hands the holy word of God, or to keep it shut in taking fromthem the means of understanding it.” In other words, to take the Bible out of thehand of Christian people, or to take away from them the means of understandingthe Scripture, is to shut the mouth of Christ Himself as far as they are concerned.“Proposition 85. To forbid the reading of Scriptrue and particularly of thegospel, to Christians is to forbid the use of light to the children of light.” Whichproposition also the pope condemns as an insufferable and abominabledoctrine, and adds: “We forbid to all the faithful of both sexes to think, teach,or speak on these propositions in any other way than as we lay down in thisconstitution or bull ; and whoever shall teach, understand, or expound thesepropositions, or any of them, in public or private in any other way than is laiddown by the pope, subjects himself to the severest censures and condemnations ofthe Church, and incurs the indignation of Almighty god, and of the holy apostlePeter and Paul.” All the propositions cited by Clement XI. in this bull, andcondemned by him as “scandalous, impious, blasphemous,” are as scriptural asthose we have quoted. ...