“And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration” (Rev. 17:6). The Roman Catholic Church has murdered millions of believers. In the Netherlands alone, multitudes were tormented and destroyed. “The history of the Low Countries from this time is so full of martyrdoms, that it is like a gradual extermination of the population. ... The fires were now kindled all over the country, and edict following edict, with increasing severity, kept them burning. It was death to read a page of the scriptures; death to discuss any article of the faith; death to have in one’s possession any of the writings of Luther, Zwingle, or OEcolampadius; death to express a doubt respecting the efficacy of the sacraments, or the authority of the pope. In the year 1536, that good and faithful servant of the Lord, William Tyndale, was strangled and burnt at Vilvordi, near Brussels, for translating the New Testament into English, and printing it in 1535. ... About four hundred churches were plundered and defaced in a few days. ... The troops were ordered to be distributed over the distracted country, that the persecuting edicts might be enforced. The Protestants were reduced to great straits; many were put to death, and many fled the country ... In the year 1567 the cruel duke of Alva was sent into the Netherlands with an army of fifteen thousand Spaniards and Italians; and the Inquisition was to put forth all its energies. The wooden churches were pulled down, and, in some places the beams were formed into a great gallows on which to hang the minister and his flock. [These atrocities were] to be witnessed almost daily in the country for nearly forty years. ... In the year 1567 ‘the council of blood,’ as it was called, held its first sitting. ... Blood now flowed in torrents. ... A new edict was issued, affixing a heavy penalty upon all waggoners, carriers, and ship-masters, who should aid in the emigration of ‘heretics.’ They had resolved that none should escape. ... Upon the 19th of February 1568 a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. ... A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex, condition. This is probably the most concise death-warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people--men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines. Under this universal condemnation the reader will see the real spirit of popery, and what all had to expect who did not yield an absolute, though blind submission, to all her idolatries, and superstitions (Miller’s Church History, pp. 1002-1008). (Friday Church News Notes, July 10, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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