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From Here to Forever

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    The Thunder of Anathema

    The anathemas of the pope thundered against Geneva. How was this little city to resist the powerful hierarchy that had forced kings and emperors to submission?HF 146.1

    The first triumphs of the Reformation past, Rome summoned new forces to accomplish its destruction. The order of the Jesuits was created, the most cruel, unscrupulous, and powerful of all the champions of popery. Dead to the claims of natural affection, and conscience wholly silenced, they knew no rule, no tie, but that of their order. (See Appendix)HF 146.2

    The gospel of Christ had enabled its adherents to endure suffering, undismayed by cold, hunger, toil, and poverty, to uphold truth in face of the rack, the dungeon, and the stake. Jesuitism inspired its followers with a fanaticism that enabled them to endure like dangers, and to oppose to the power of truth all the weapons of deception. There was no crime too great to commit, no deception too base to practice, no disguise too difficult for them to assume. It was their studied aim to overthrow Protestantism and reestablish papal supremacy.HF 146.3

    They wore a garb of sanctity, visiting prisons and hospitals, ministering to the sick and the poor, and bearing the sacred name of Jesus, who went about doing good. But under this blameless exterior, criminal and deadly purposes were often concealed.HF 146.4

    It was a fundamental principle of the order that the end justifies the means. Lying, theft, perjury, assassination, were commendable when they served the interests of the church. Under disguise the Jesuits worked their way into offices of state, climbing up to be the counselors of kings and shaping the policy of nations. They became servants to act as spies upon their masters. They established colleges for princes and nobles, and schools for the common people. The children of Protestant parents were drawn into an observance of popish rites. Thus the liberty for which the fathers had toiled and bled was betrayed by the sons. Wherever the Jesuits went, there followed a revival of popery.HF 146.5

    To give them greater power, a bull was issued reestablishing the Inquisition. This terrible tribunal was again set up by popish rulers, and atrocities too terrible to bear the light of day were repeated in its secret dungeons. In many countries thousands upon thousands of the very flower of the nation, the most intellectual and highly educated, were slain or forced to flee to other lands. (See Appendix)HF 147.1

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