When our U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights go away

Follow the sequence of the below internet article and then substitute America for France, substitute their revocation of the Edict of Nantes for a revoking of our guaranteed religious freedom, and look at Louis XIV's persecutions against the Huguenots and substitute them with the ensuing riddance, in the near future, of actual protesting Protestant Christians (who protest the reemerging power of Rome and the emergence of secret corruption being seen all through government affairs) and the riddance of brave, honest secular dissidents.

 

Notice that we have already seen legislated some of what Louis XIV decreed—the Huguenots' total loss of legal protection and the sure punishment of life imprisonment—in their case on the galleys until they died of exhaustion or some other comparable fate—but in ours, indefinite detention and torture in one of many new prisons now sitting empty. All we are waiting for is another Louis XIV and another Pearl Harbor such as we had on 9/11, and that person and such a world event may be in the very near future.

 

The Edict of Nantes (1598)

The Edict of Nantes is one of the great acts of religious tolerance. It stemmed from the French Religious Wars which tore the country apart. The Religious Wars including the eight outbreaks of violence occurred during the reign of Henry III who succeeded Charles IX. The Huguenots led by Henry of Navarre [Henry IV] defeated the Catholic forces at Coutras (1587). The Huguenots were aided by infighting among the Catholics. The Duc de Guise was assassinated by other Catholics (1588) as was Henry III himself (1589). With Henry's death the House of Valois became extinct and of all people, the Protestant leader Henry of Navarre became king, the first monarch of the Bourbon line. To end the destructive civil wars, Henry converted to Catholicism (1593). He issued the Edict of Nantes granting almost complete religious freedom on the Protestants. With this freedom during the reign of Henry, the Protestants grew to be a major force in France. The Edict of Nantes was signed by Henry IV (1598). This ended the Wars of Religion. Under the terms of the Edict, the Huguenots were permitted to freely practice their faith in 20 specified French "free" cities. France was again became united and a decade of peace followed. Henry IV was murdered (in 1610)

Assassination of Henry IV (1610)

King Henry IV was murdered by a religious zealot (1610). The King was traveling from the Louvre to meet his great minister Sully. As a consequence of the Religious Wars, the King was usually well guarded in public, but after the passage of so many years without incident, the standards of precaution had fallen. Rather than using his heavy coach with glass windows, the King who was increasingly dismissive of danger, chose a light phaeton which had open sides. It was much more maneuverable in the crowded streets of Paris. A hay wagon blocked the street. The King's guard left his side to clear the way. François Ravaillac a failed monk and school teacher who had hallucinations had been stalking the King, seized on the opportunity. He jumped on the running board and slashed at the King with a knife. Henry was reading a letter and unprepared. His second blow severed the King's aorta. Ravaillac was seized and horribly tortured to learn of any conspirators. Ravaillac insisted he acted alone and this appears to have been the case. Henry's enlightened reign had given France more than a decade of peace in the religious wars. Had he lived longer it might have proved to be an enduring peace. With his death, it proved to be only a truce and the greatly improved power of the state in Catholic hands irrevocably changed the balance of power between the two religions.

Louis XIII and Louis XIV

Henry IV is commonly considered one of the great monarchs of France. One serious failure, however, was his failure to develop in his son an enlightened attitude toward religion. This failure was to doom the Huguenots whose cause Henry had so valiantly championed. Louis under the influence of his mother [Marie de Medici] grew up to be devoutly Catholic and intolerant. Louis XIII after the murder of his father, Henry IV, rose to the throne. He sought to create an absolutist monarchy and organized groups like the Huguenots stood in his way. As a result, new persecutions were conducted and renewed fighting occurred. Huguenots that fell into Louis' hands were sentenced to the galleys. The campaign to suppress the Huguenots was conducted under the guidance of Cardinal Richelieu. Louis XIII is another important French king. This was not the result of Louis himself, but rather his choice of Richelieu to oversee his reign. Richelieu focused on the campaign against the Huguenots. He adroitly succeeded in breaking the political and military power of the Huguenots. After a protracted siege, the great Huguenot stronghold La Rochelle was finally taken (1628). He then attempted to conciliate the Protestants--to a degree. Louis XIV was even more committed to building an absolute monarchy. He is most famous for his statement, "I am the state." To this end, Louis ordered a merciless persecution of the Huguenots, culminating in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Louis XIV' Beliefs

Louis XIV fervently believed that diversity of religion weakened his kingdom and authority. It is not altogether clear how important religion was to him. It is clear that the thought of religious division weakened him politically. This was especially the case because he was planning a series of wars with neighboring Protestant countries. He thought that France needed one common religion. This was not a novel idea. Many European monarchs shared this idea and would continue to believe this into the next century. The difference between Louis and other monarchs is that Louis had achieved an absolute monarchy. Thus the Huguenots in France had no protection of law beyond the Edict of Nantes. The situation was quite different in many other countries, especially England. This is what Mary tried to do, but did not have Louis' powers. Any fear of just such an action would cost Charles I his head (English Civil War) and James II his crown (Miraculous Revolution).

Revocation (1685)

Just as the Edict of Nantes is one of the great acts of religious toleration, it's revocation by Louis XIV is one of the great acts of religious intolerance of history. After years of quiet persecution under Louis XIII and Louis XIV, Louis XIV finally took the ultimate step--revoking the Edict of Nantes (1685). The King's mistress, Mme. de Maintenon is believed to have helped make up his mind to suppress the Huguenots. The revocation was issued as the Edict of Fontainebleau (October 1685). The revocation opened the way for the destruction of Protestant churches and schools. This was not the beginning of the persecution of the Huguenots, but it essentially authorized that persecution. It made official [the] royal policy that had been made possible after Huguenot military power was broken at La Rochelle (1628). Louis XIII and Louis XIV gradually chipped away at Protestantism in France. The Revocation did raise the level of action against the Huguenots. The King in the Edict ordered, " The Edit of Nantes shall be abolished in its entirety. The Protestant temples shall be destroyed without exception...."

Text

Louis' Edict of Fontainebleau revoking the Edict of Nantes is notable for the focus on the wealth and children of the Huguenots. The text read,
* The Edict of Nantes shall be abolished in its entirety.
* The Protestant temples shall be destroyed without exception.
* The Reformed clergy who do not immediately renounce, must leave the kingdom within two weeks under penalty of the galleys. Children over seven years of age may not be taken abroad, since they are of age in religious matters.
* All Reformed schools shall be dissolved, and all Reformed religious instruction prohibited.
* The followers of the "allegedly Reformed religion" (the religion which displeases the king) are prohibited from assembling for services or other meetings in any location whatsoever, or in a private residence, under penalty of seizure of their property and themselves.
* The children born to Reformed parents are to be baptized Catholic and sent to the Catholic churches (under penalty of 500 livres or more). The judges of the towns are explicitly instructed to supervise the enforcement of these decrees.
* The subjects, their wives and children, are prohibited from emigrating, or from removing their possessions and goods from the country under penalty of the galleys for the men and the seizure of body and possessions for the women. Those who already had left the country had four months to return without penalty, if they renounced.

Persecution

The destruction of Protestant churches did not begin with the Revocation, but the pace quickened. Louis was determined to utterly destroy Protestantism in France and to annihilate those Huguenots who refused to convert. François Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, (1641-91) was Louis XIV's Minister of State and War. He played a major role in building the French Army into the most powerful in Europe. And he used the Army to execute the King's orders to destroy Protestantism and recalcitrant Huguenots. Louvois instituted the dreaded dragonnades. These were armed raids by the military to capture Huguenots and seize their property. They were accompanied by torture and pillage--the torture was both gratuitous and to make sure all the valuables were turned over. Protestant areas in the provinces which refused to convert were laid waste. [The Huguenots of] Languedoc in particular were targeted. Louis within a few months reduced the number of Protestants by about three-fourths. Faced with extinction, most converted. Those who publicly refused conversion faced execution or the galleys. The other option was emigration. Louis attempted to prevent this by confiscating the property of those who attempted to flee. Protestants were denied public office and often the ability to make decent livelihoods. Violence against individual Protestants varied. There were forced conversion in the countryside. Some individuals who spit out the host were burned at the stake in scenes reminiscent of the Inquisition. King Louis ordered the arrest of the most prominent Protestant nobles in Paris under lettres de cachet. They were incarcerated in the Bastille under harsh conditions, but not tortured. They were held there until they accepted conversion. Many died there rather than renounce their religion.

Conversion

About 1.0 million Protestants remained in France. It is difficult to assess how sincere the conversions were. Some Huguenots managed to discretely practice their religion. We know this because in the next century Protestants reappeared in France, but with much reduced numbers. Discreetly practicing Protestantism was difficult because of both the children and servants--some of the problems the Jewish Meranos faced in evading the Inquisition. French Protestants could avoid going to Church, but the children were not only a danger when young, but they were likely over time to be drawn into Catholic culture. Notice the emphasis placed on the children in thee text Louis' revocation order.

My thoughts:

The people who controlled the events that moved France away from religious tolerance and the Reformation under Henry IV to a fully persecuting dictatorship under Louis XIV are the same people, motivated by the spiritual powers from the bottomless pit, who are moving America and its religious toleration and separation of church and state toward a ruthless, persecuting, totalitarian state where church and state will be united and wickedness will pervade the land.

The campaign to suppress the Huguenots under Louis XIII was organized and accomplished by Cardinal Richelieu. It needed the direct involvement of a leading priest because Louis XIII was not competent enough to do the work of destroying his own people or to tread the tenuous political path that such a work required. But, his successor, Louis XIV was capable of both politician and defender of the Roman Catholic agenda, therefore the Church could remain in the background, advising and call the shots as it did in WWII, and appear as though its hands were washed and clean of the dirty work of torture and death to heretics and silencing the voice of the gospel.

By degrees, Protestantism was put out of France and the cruel, dark, superstitious religion of Rome reinstated. Are we seeing the same today? Have not the glories of the U.S. Constitution been slowly, step by step, removed from America? The brazenly unconstitutional Federal Reserve Act which was pushed through by a small group of legislators during Christmas break and signed immediately by Woodrow Wilson, numerous presidential assassinations or the attempts, many acts of conspiracy throughout our 200+ year history to jockey into place the super secret government agencies that are not accountable to the American people, the fear-mongering attack on Americans by their own government in order to stage a war on alleged terror that is subjugating sovereign tribes and weaker nations, and expoiting their natural resources for the enrichment and empowerment of the aggressor nation and weakening of the other.

Wars and rumors of wars because of alleged terrorism against the U.S. are now in the legitimized plans for American foreign policy, spreading “democracy” and submission to “Christianity” around the world, while the United States becomes more and more vigorous an aggressor nation to monopolize all the natural resources it can and to take control of nations. It is building a network of empty prisons awaiting the day satanic hosts decide to force their new agenda upon the whole world and overthrow the reign of righteousness around the globe that Protestant America began to establish at its birth, but that Satan has fought to oppose since the Declaration of Independence. But, we cannot go all the way to global domination until America accepts an absolute monarchy--rule by decree, oligarcical despotism as Rome had under the Caesars.

The heavenly hosts have been battling over this world since 1776 against the hosts of darkness, just as happened in the days of Daniel.

“But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.…

Knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come.” (Dan. 10:13,20).

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the aftermath of torture and death and perdition points to another, larger revocation of freedom and peace in the earth. We are entering phase two of Satan's last opportunity to control the world, this time as a integrated unit, connected by technologies and telecommunications, the universal English language, a cosmopolitan culture, a spreading socialistic form of capitalism and democracy, an intricate intelligence network that connects all the agencies into one. Such a concentration of power cannot be the accomplishment of one man, not even the “black pope” and all of the Vatican.

It must a spiritual entity who has honed his skill and knowledge of deception and control for thousands of years. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Eph. 6:12).

“The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.” (Rev. 17:8).

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [of Christ's return] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.…

And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming:

Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2Thess. 2:3,4,8-12).

 

From the pen of Ellen White:

     It is at the time of the national apostasy when, acting on the policy of Satan, the rulers of the land will rank themselves on the side of the man of sin. It is then the measure of guilt is full. The national apostasy is the signal for national ruin.--2SM 373 (1891).   
     Roman Catholic principles will be taken under the care and protection of the state.  This national apostasy will speedily be followed by national ruin.--RH June 15, 1897.  
     When Protestant churches shall unite with the secular power to sustain a false religion, for opposing which their ancestors endured the fiercest persecution, then will the papal sabbath be enforced by the combined authority of church and state.  There will be a national apostasy, which will end only in national ruin.--Ev 235 (1899).   
     When the state shall use its power to enforce the decrees and sustain the institutions of the church--then will Protestant America have formed an image to the papacy, and there will be a national apostasy which will end only in national ruin.--7BC 976 (1910).  

                        Universal Sunday Legislation

     History will be repeated. False religion will be exalted. The first day of the week, a common working day, possessing no sanctity whatever, will be set up as was the image of Babylon. All nations and tongues and peoples will be commanded to worship this spurious sabbath. . . . The decree enforcing the worship of this day is to go forth to all the world.--7BC 976 (1897).
     As America, the land of religious liberty, shall unite with the papacy in forcing the conscience and compelling men to honor the false sabbath, the people of every country on the globe will be led to follow her example.--6T 18 (1900).  
     The Sabbath question is to be the issue in the great final conflict in which all the world will act a part.--6T 352 (1900).   
     Foreign nations will follow the example of the United States. Though she leads out, yet the same crisis will come upon our people in all parts of the world.--6T 395 (1900).   
     The substitution of the false for the true is the last act in the drama. When this substitution becomes universal God will reveal Himself. When the laws of men are exalted above the laws of God, when the powers of this earth try to force men to keep the first day of the week, know that the time has come for God to work.--7BC 980 (1901).
     The substitution of the laws of men for the law of God, the exaltation, by merely human authority, of Sunday in place of the Bible Sabbath, is the last act in the drama. When this substitution becomes universal God will reveal Himself. He will arise in His majesty to shake terribly the earth.--7T 141 (1902).  

Last, but not least, "the joy of the Lord is your strength." (Neh. 8:10).