vatican-assassins-by-eric-jon-phelps

Chapter 17 235something else, and wait to see if their desires might not be accomplishedthrough the agency of wicked men, or chance, or the devil. They came boldlyto the Holy of Holies, and asked for it. Their enemies were the enemies ofGod; their foes those of the Church, who were coming to lay waste anddestroy God’s heritage, and they wished their overthrow, and honestly, andwith strong crying and tears, prayed for it. Like Cromwell’s Ironsides, whofirst invoked God’s right arm to strike with them, and then, with the fearfulwar-cry ‘Religion’ on their lips swept like a thundercloud to battle; like theCovenanters, who prayed that their swords might be like that of Gideon, thatturned not back from the slaughter, and then fell in fury on their pursuers;like David, praying for the overthrow of his enemies, and Moses, and Joshua,and the prophets, whose earnest supplications swelled the heaps of the slain;so these puritan divines, without rancor or vindictive hate, prayed in thisfashion, and with an honest, earnest purpose, ‘Thy kingdom come.’ ” {16}[Emphasis added]Such was the rag-tag American army led by their great chieftain and ProtestantSoutherner, General George Washington. Surrounded by Calvinist preachers likeTimothy Dwight, – the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, the Calvinist man of Godwho preached America’s First Great Awakening – Washington always receivedwords of encouragement and exhortations to prayer. At Valley Forge we see theFather of our country at his greatest — on his knees. We read:“One day a Quaker, by the name of Potts, was strolling up a creek, when heheard, in a secluded spot, the solemn voice of some one apparently engagedin prayer. Stealing quietly forward, he saw Washington’s horse tied to asapling, and a little farther on, in a thicket, the chief himself, on his knees,and with tears streaming down his cheeks, beseeching Heaven for his countryand his army. Before God alone, that strong heart gave way, and poured forththe full tide of its griefs and anxieties. Though the heavens grew dark aroundhim, and disaster after disaster wrecked his brightest hopes, and despairsettled down on officers and men, he showed the same unalterable presence— moved the same tower of strength. But to his God he could safely go withhis troubles, and on that arm securely lean. How sublime does he appear, andhow good and holy the cause he was engaged in seems, as he thus carries itto the throne of a just God, feeling that it has his sanction and can claim hisprotection . . . No wonder peace sat enthroned on that brow when despairclouded all others.” {17}In time the prayers of Washington were answered. Haym Solomon, awealthy Jewish banker and Philadelphia broker, loaned his entire fortune, a quarter ofa million dollars in specie, for the Army at Valley Forge. The Protestant Netherlands,along with Catholic France and Spain, having expelled the Jesuits from their landsThe Jesuits – 1775 - 1815