The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

424 Double Foreview of the Reformation.one the the wisest and worthiest of his age, was burnt at the stake in 1498. Sevenyears of cruel war raged against the Hussites, and a civil persecution more bitterstill. Eighteen thousand soldiers were sent into the valleys of Piedmont, towardsthe end of the fourteenth century, to exterminate the Waldenses of Piedmont,and appropriate to themselves all their property. The Christians of Val Louise, inDauphiny, were actually exterminated, burned alive, and suffocated in the cavesin which they had sought refuge. Four hundred infants were found dead in theirmothers' arms, and 3,000 perished in the struggle.Lorente calculates, from official reports, that in the forty years prior to theReformation, the Inquisition alone burned 13,000 persons and condemned169,000. The latter half of the fifteenth century was a time of Satan's ragingagainst the saints. But in spite or racks and prisons and sword and flame, thevoices of the witnesses of Jesus [Jahschua] were still raised in behalf of the truth,and against the power and pretensions of antichrist.At last, however, as the fifteenth century drew to a close, the furious crusadeseemed about to accomplish its object. The beast had all but conquered andkilled the witnesses, according to the prediction. The strong figure employed ofthe witnesses lying dead for three and a half days, means, of course, that theirtestimony was silenced. They no longer prophesied ; they were silent, helpless,extinct for a brief period. They were worn out. The wild beast from the abyss hadprevailed against them. For the moment the struggle was over.The fulfilment of this part of the vision was at the opening of the sixteenthcentury, just before the Reformation movement commenced. Hear Mosheim'sdescription of the crisis. "As the sixteenth century opened, no danger seemedto threaten the Roman pontiffs. The agitations excited in former centuriesby the Waldenses, Albingenses, Beghards, and others, and afterwards bythe Bohemians, had been suppressed and extinguished by counsel and bythe sword. The surviving remnant of Waldenses hardly lived, pent up in thenarrow limits of Piedmontese valleys, and those of the Bohemians, throughtheir weakness and ignorance, could attempt nothing, and thus were anobject of contempt rather than fear." Milner, the Church historian, says that atthis date, though the name of Christ was professed everywhere in Europe, nothingexisted that could properly be called evangelical. All the confessors of Christ,"worn out by a long series of contentions, were reduced to silence." "Everythingwas quiet," says another writer ; "every heretic exterminated." This was not,of course, literally true. The Lord [YAHWEH] knows them that are His, and hadeven in that darkest hour of the night that precedes the dawn, His own who servedHim secretly. But so far as collective testimony before Europe was concerned, thewitnesses were dead ! Their enemies gloried in the fact. The Lateran Councilcongratulated itself that Christendom was no longer afflicted by heresies, and, asone of its orators said, addressing Lex X., "Jam nemo reclamat, nullus obsistit.""There is an end of resistance to the Papal rule, and religious opposers exist nomore." And again, "The whole body of Christendom is now seen to be subjectedto its head, i.e. to you." Leo commanded a great jublilation, and granted aplenary indulgence in honor of the event. Dean Waddington, desribing the closeof this council, says: "The pillars of Rome's strength were visible and palpable,