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From Here to Forever
all those woes which their church had so freely inflicted on the gentle
heretics.”
“Then came those days ... when spies lurked in every corner;
when the guillotine was long and hard at work every morning; when
the jails were filled as close as the holds of a slave ship; when the
gutters ran foaming with blood into the Seine. ... Long rows of
captives were mowed down with grapeshot. Holes were made in the
bottom of crowded barges. ... The number of young lads and of girls
of seventeen who were murdered by that execrable government, is
to be reckoned by hundreds. Babies torn from the breast were tossed
from pike to pike along the Jacobin ranks.”
All this was as Satan would have it. His policy is deception
and his purpose is to bring wretchedness upon men, to deface the
workmanship of God, to mar the divine purpose of love, and thus
cause grief in heaven. Then by his deceptive arts, he leads men to
throw the blame on God, as if all this misery were the result of the
Creator’s plan. When the people found Romanism to be a deception,
he urged them to regard all religion as a cheat and the Bible as a
fable.
The Fatal Error
The fatal error which wrought such woe for France was the ignor-
ing of this one great truth: true freedom lies within the proscriptions
of the law of God. “O that thou hadst hearkened to my command-
ments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness
as the waves of the sea.”
Isaiah 48:18
. Those who will not read the
lesson from the Book of God are bidden to read it in history.
When Satan wrought through the Roman Church to lead men
away from obedience, his work was disguised. By the working of
the Spirit of God his purposes were prevented from reaching their
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full fruition. The people did not trace the effect to its cause and
discover the source of their miseries. But in the Revolution the law
of God was openly set aside by the National Council. And in the
Reign of Terror which followed, the working of cause and effect
could be seen by all.
The transgression of a just and righteous law must result in ruin.
The restraining Spirit of God, which imposes a check upon the cruel