vatican-assassins-by-eric-jon-phelps

114 Vatican AssassinsThe Netherlands also called “The Low Countries” began to embrace theBiblical doctrines of grace taught by the Reformers, especially John Calvin.Thousands of Dutchmen were receiving Christ as the gospel was being preached inopen fields. The result was that Rome began to lose her political power. To stop thismovement of the risen Son of God, the Devil and his Jesuits moved Philip II tore-enact the Edict of 1550, which read in part:“No one shall print, write, copy, keep, conceal, sell, buy or give inchurches, streets, or other places, any book or writing made by MartinLuther, John Calvin, or other heretics reprobated by the Holy Church . . .nor in his house hold illegal gatherings . . . Moreover, we forbid all laypersons to converse or dispute concerning the Holy Scriptures, openly orsecretly, or to read, teach or expound the Scriptures . . . or to preachsecretly or openly . . . on pain . . . to be punished in the following manner.That such . . . are to be executed, to wit: the men with the sword and thewomen to be buried alive, if they do not persist in their errors; if they dopersist in them, then they are to be executed with fire; all their property inboth cases being confiscated to the crown.” {5}To enforce this “mischief framed by a law” Philip dispatched ten thousandSpanish troops led by the Duke of Alva. The Duke established an evil tribunal called“the Blood Council.” Thousands perished to the delight of Cardinal Granvelle andTitelmann the Inquisitor. Of this horrible time we read:“In the second half of the sixteenth century the Spanish armies occupiedHolland and Flanders and the glare of the Inquisition’s autos-da-fé lit upthe market squares of the cities great and small. After a long vigil inprayer, the silent man with the cruel eyes in the Escorial [Philip II ofMadrid, Spain] had decreed the extermination of the new religion in theNetherlands. In less than a decade there perished by his will in the torturechambers, on the gallows and on the pyres two hundred and fiftythousand men and women of the Dutch race. Nobles and burghers, oldand young, rich and poor, all were dragged from their homes, frequentlyon secret denunciation, to face the Grand Inquisitor – the monk Titelmann– and his helpers, who knew no mercy.” {6}But the Dutch Protestants would not be conquered. They had a great leader.His name was William I of Orange, surnamed “the Silent.” He had been raised inthe court of Charles V, the “Holy Roman Emperor,” and was fit to lead a people topolitical liberty. He waged war from the sea commanding the bravest soldiers of theage. John Lothrop Motley, one of the Reformation’s greatest historians havingauthored The Dutch Republic and The United Netherlands, writes:The Jesuits – 1568 - 1648