Bible and the French Revolution
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of the Bible were abolished. The weekly rest-day was set aside, and
in its stead every tenth day was devoted to reveling and blasphemy.
Baptism and the communion were prohibited. And announcements
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posted conspicuously over the burial-places declared death to be an
eternal sleep.
The fear of God was said to be so far from the beginning of wisdom
that it was the beginning of folly. All religious worship was prohib-
ited, except that of liberty and the country. “The constitutional bishop
of Paris was brought forward to play the principal part in the most
impudent and scandalous farce ever enacted in the face of a national
representation.... He was brought forward in full procession, to declare
to the convention that the religion which he had taught so many years
was, in every respect, a piece of priestcraft, which had no foundation
either in history or in sacred truth. He disowned in solemn and ex-
plicit terms the existence of the Deity, to whose worship he had been
consecrated, and devoted himself in future to the homage of liberty,
equality, virtue, and morality. He then laid on the table his episcopal
decorations, and received a fraternal embrace from the president of
the convention. Several apostate priests followed the example of this
prelate.”
“And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and
make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two
prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.” Infidel France had
silenced the reproving voice of God’s two witnesses. The Word of
truth lay dead in her streets, and those who hated the restrictions and
requirements of God’s law were jubilant. Men publicly defied the
King of Heaven. Like the sinners of old, they cried, “How doth God
know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?” [
Psalm 73:11
.]
With blasphemous boldness almost beyond belief, one of the priests
of the new order said: “God, if you exist, avenge your injured name.
I bid you defiance! You remain silent. You dare not launch your
thunders! Who, after this, will believe in your existence?” What an
echo is this of the Pharaoh’s demand: “Who is Jehovah, that I should
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obey his voice?” “I know not Jehovah!”
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God?” [
Psalm 14:1
.]
And the Lord declares concerning the perverters of the truth, “Their
folly shall be manifest unto all.” [
2 Timothy 3:9
.] After France had
renounced the worship of the living God, “the high and lofty One