France in Prophecy by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 12, 1912

France in Prophecy

By F. M. W.

In the eleventh chapter of Daniel is found the longest literal prophecy contained in the Scriptures of Truth. The preceding prophecies of this book teach truth by symbolic representation. The great universal kingdoms of earth are represented by the metals of the image of Daniel 2, and by the beasts of Daniel 7 and 8; but when we come to chapter 11, the great events in the history of mankind during the long sketch of years from the days of the prophet down to the close of time, are presented in literal language.

The prophecy begins with the Medo-Persian kingdom. The succession of the Grecian empire under Alexander; the division of his mighty empire into four parts; the long conflict between the king of the north as represented by the Syrian Seleucidæ, and the kingdom of the south under Ptolemy; the entrance into the field of “the robbers of thy people,” undoubtedly referring to the Roman empire; the leading events of Rome’s universal reign, the methods and policies by which she sought to carry forward her work, finally merging into the period of papal domination,—all these are clearly outlined in this prophetic delineation.

Beginning with verse 32 of chapter 11, there is brought to view a mighty conflict between the papal power and the children of God. In the long period of papal persecution many of God’s people fell “by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.” The Lord permitted this to come upon his church, as presented in verse 35, “to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end.” Thus we are brought down in this prophecy to the close of the 1260 days of papal persecution, or to the year 1798, which also marked the beginning of a period called “the time of the end.”

At this date in the prophetic outline the changing kaleidoscope of time brings before us another power. A king, or kingdom, arises whose history and experience present many new, striking, and revolutionary characteristics. What government is here introduced? Several leading specifications of the prophecy brought to view in verses 36-40 enable us with tolerable accuracy to locate the nation indicated:—

1. The power brought to view in these verses must enter in natural order into the logical sequence of the prophecy. There must be an evident reason for its notice by divine inspiration.

2. Its history, or the part it acts in the affairs of men, must be of sufficient moment to warrant its introduction into the prophetic outline.

3. That part of its history indicated by the prophecy must be fulfilled at a definite date; namely, at “the time of

the end,” when, according to this prophecy in comparison with other scriptures, the beast, or papal power, received its deadly wound and went into captivity. Rev. 12:14-16; 13:10.

4. It must be a nation in which a great revolutionary movement, or upheaval, takes place. It must depart from the old order of things, and play a new rôle among the nations of men.

5. It must be an atheistical power, denying its faith of the past and the God of its fathers, and exalting itself above every god.

6. It must finally be brought to the creation of a god of its own, and render to it fulsome worship.

7. It must be a nation which sinks to the lowest depths of moral degradation, trampling underfoot the sacred relationship of marriage.

8. It must divide its land for gain.

9. At this same period in its history, namely, “at the time of the end,” other powers, represented by the king of the north and the king of the south, must come against it in battle.

Only one power is found at this period of the world’s history which fulfils these specifications. That power is France, and the period here brought to view is the period of the French Revolution.

Consider the application to France in the light of this vivid prophetic pen-picture:—

1. Why at this particular point in the prophecy should the French Revolution be brought to view? The answer is obvious,—as an object-lesson to all the world, and to all succeeding nations, of the results which follow the rejection of God, and the spurning of his message and messengers sent to bring salvation.

For years the Papacy had carried forward its desolating work in the world. Religion had become a travesty, the worship of God a hollow mockery; and yet this false system continued to proclaim itself to all mankind as the one true faith, as the only pure representation of the worship of the Most High.

Infinite Mercy had sought to regenerate conditions. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was designed to correct the great abuses existing in the religious, social, and political fabric of the common weal. In France itself God had raised up in the Huguenots faithful witnesses of the true faith. In the papal church, the Jansenists had sought to reform some of the great abuses. One class was expelled, carrying from the country of France her best and most substantial citizens. The other class was crushed through the connivance of the power of Rome and the French state.

God was seeking to save the world from the whirlpool into which its own excesses were plunging it. Some of the nations of Europe heeded the warning. The seeds of the Reformation were allowed to germinate and bear fruit. Counter-influences were set in operation, and many abuses in the state, the church, and the social life of the nations were remedied. Not so, however, with France. Proudly and arrogantly she rejected every overture at reformation of life. She cast from her the means whereby she might have been saved from her terrible downfall. Nothing then remained but for her to reap the baneful fruitage of the pernicious seed sowing of the past. To the whole civilized world was afforded a revelation, an example, of the natural harvest resulting from a rejection of God and his saving truth.

Viewed as a whole, the French Revolution presents in its destructive effects, a spectacle of divine judgment without a parallel in human history. Terrible as was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, even it sinks into a secondary place when compared with the wholesale slaughter by massacre and war which accompanied this fearful modern judgment, affecting not only the whole of France, but all the surrounding nations of Europe. In letters of flame across the movement, is written the word Retribution.—“History Unveiling Prophecy,” by H. Grattan Guinness, D. D., page 226.

2. Were the events connected with and growing out of the French Revolution of sufficient importance in their bearing upon the history of the world to warrant the introduction of France into the prophetic outline?—They certainly were. This revolution, so far as European history is concerned, and its effect upon the after-civilization of the world, formed a connecting link between the old régime and the new. Speaking of the influence of this great national upheaval upon the history of mankind, Sir Archibald Alison, in his “History of Europe,” Vol. II, page 243, says:—

The French Revolution was a revolt not only against the government and institutions, but the opinions and the belief, of former times. It was ushered in by an inundation of skepticism and infidelity; it was attended by unexampled cruelty to the ministers of religion; it led to the overthrow of every species of devotion, and the education of a generation ignorant even of the first elements of the Christian faith.

Similar testimony is borne by G. P. Gooch, M. A., Trinity College, in “The Cambridge Modern History,” Vol. VII, page 754:—

The French Revolution is the most important event in the life of modern Europe. Herder compared it to the Reformation and the rise of Christianity. . . . It brought on the stage of human affairs forces which have molded the thoughts and actions of men ever since, and have taken a permanent place among the formative influences of civilization.

As expressed by another writer:—

The history of the French Revolution is the history of Europe for more than a century, the history of the modern world. Never was there anything more terribly majestic in human history; never will there be—till the last judgment-day. Viewed in relation to the past and to the future, to all that it destroyed, to all that it inaugurated, the French Revolution stands alone, without a parallel. Viewed in itself as an explosion of infidelity, immorality, massacre, and war, there is nothing in the range of the world’s history to compare with it. Before the tremendous forces which it unchained, thrones, temples, and institutions which had stood for ages were overturned as trees by a tempest, and swept away as straws by a whirlwind.—“History Unveiling Prophecy,” pages 201, 202.

France naturally fills a place in this long-prophetic outline of the world’s history. Indeed, without it, the delineation would be incomplete.

3. That this revolution occurred at the time specified, namely, at the beginning of the time of the end, goes without saying. At this period the deadly wound was inflicted upon the papal power. Indeed, France became the agent in the hand of God whereby his judgments were meted out to this apostate system.

4. Most fully and completely did France meet the requirement of a nation in the throes of a great revolution. The whole purpose of that movement was to change the existing order of things, and this was true not only as related to the form of government, but to the social order and to long-cherished doctrines and venerated ideals. The historical statements given in succeeding paragraphs very fully demonstrate this.

5. France fulfilled the prophecy in that it stood before all the world as atheistical in its profession. Verse 36 declares, “He shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods.” And in verse 37, it is said, “Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers.” The highest conception of religion on the part of the French people was that embraced in the Roman Catholic system; hence in revolting against that church and its abuses, in casting out the crafty priesthood which in union with an oppressive monarchy had brought it into bondage, France verily believed that it was destroying Christianity. Holding God responsible for the abuses it had suffered from his professed but misguided representatives, France counted heaven the author of its woe, and bade defiance to the Most High. Alison in his “History of Europe,” Vol. III, page 21, speaks of the spirit which actuated the French revolutionists at this period:—

Having massacred the great of the present, and insulted the illustrious of former ages, nothing remained to the revolutionists but to direct their furyagainst Heaven itself. Pache, Hébert, and Chaumette, the leaders of the municipality, publicly expressed their determination “to dethrone the King of heaven, as well as the monarchs of the earth.”—Page 21.

Of the manner in which this spirit was manifested, Alison continues:—

To accomplish this design, they prevailed on Gobel, the apostate constitutional bishop of Paris, to appear at the bar of the convention, accompanied by some of the clergy of his diocese, and there abjure the Christian faith. That base prelate declared “that no other national religion was now required but that of liberty, equality, and morality.” Many of the constitutional bishops and clergy in the convention joined in the proposition. The convention received them with loud applause, and gave them the fraternal kiss. Crowds of drunken artisans and shameless prostitutes crowded to the bar, and trampled under their feet the sacred vases, consecrated for ages to the holiest purposes of religion. The sections of Paris shortly after followed the example of the constitutional clergy, and publicly abjured the Christian religion. The churches were stripped of all their ornaments; their plate and valuable contents were brought in heaps to the municipality and the convention, from whence they were sent to the mint to be melted down.—Pages 21, 22.

The effect of these principles upon the life of the nation was at once apparent:—

The services of religion were now universally abandoned. The pulpits were deserted throughout all the revolutionized districts; baptism ceased; the burial service was no longer heard; the sick received no communion, the dying no consolation. A heavier anathema than that of papal power pressed upon the peopled realm of France—the anathema of Heaven, inflicted by the madness of her own inhabitants. The village bells were silent; Sunday was obliterated. Infancy entered the world without a blessing; age left it without a hope. In lieu of the services of the church, the licentious fêtes of the new system were performed by the most abandoned females; it appeared as if the Christian worship had been succeeded by the orgies of the Babylonian priests, or the grossness of the Hindu theocracy. On every tenth day a revolutionary leader ascended the pulpit, and preached atheism to the bewildered audience; Marat was universally deified; and even the instrument of death was sanctified by the name of the “Holy Guillotine.”—Id., pages 23, 24.

6. The prophecy declares, however, that while the nation at first should turn from every god, in the end it should establish a god of its own; “a god whom his fathers knew not,” “a strange god,” should it honor. The human heart is so constituted that when it turns away from the worship of the true God, it inevitably seeks some other object of adoration. This France did. The principles of justice, equality, and liberty, the dictates of reason, the forces of nature, were set before the multitude as the objects of their adoration. A sort of deism dominated national thought and teaching.

The one hope above all others, of life beyond the tomb, which in every age and with every people has proved a strength and solace in the ills of this world and in the end robbed death of its awfulness, was ridiculed. “On all the public cemeteries the inscription was placed, ‘Death is an eternal sleep.’” And in response to the public sentiment, “the comedian Monvel, in the church of St. Roch, carried impiety to its utmost length. ‘God, if you exist,’ said he, ‘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?’”

Hesitating at no means nor methods which human ingenuity could conceive, the nation with one consent did everything in its power to cast reproach upon what it conceived to be the religion of Christ. Ceremonies once regarded sacred were derisively parodied. An ass was dressed in pontifical garments, and in solemn procession paraded to the church. He was made to drink sacramental wine. Forty thousand churches were turned into stables for horses; the populace gloried in their shame.

A popular actress was enthroned as the goddess of reason, and before her the multitudes prostrated themselves in worship of their new idol. No such scene was ever before witnessed in any nation under heaven. Truly France renounced the God of its fathers. The people cast aside every semblance of the worship in which their fathers before them had engaged; and in their personification of reason paid reverence to a new and hitherto unrecognized deity. Verily this fulfilled in a marked manner the “strange god” of the prophecy to whom this power should pay reverence.

7. Disregard of the marriage ordinance. Verse 37 declares that this power should not regard “the desire of women.” Following as an inevitable result of its rejection of God, France was plunged into the depth of moral degradation. How strikingly this was done is pictured in the word of history:—

The most sacred relations of life were at the same period placed on a new footing, suited to the extravagant ideas of the times. Marriage was declared a civil contract, binding only during the pleasure of the contracting parties. Divorce immediately became general; the corruption of manners reached a pitch unknown during the worst days of the monarchy; the vices of the marquises and countesses of the time of Louis XV descended to the shopkeepers and artisans of Paris. So indiscriminate did concubinage become, that, by a decree of the convention, bastards were declared entitled to an equal share of the succession with legitimate children. Mademoiselle Arnould, a celebrated comedian, expressed the public feeling when she called “marriage the sacrament of adultery.” The divorces in Paris, in the first three months of 1793, were 562, while the marriages were only 1,785—a proportion probably unexampled among mankind. The consequence soon became apparent. Before the era of the consulate, one half of the whole births in Paris were illegitimate.

A decree of the convention soon after suppressed all the public schools and colleges, even those of medicine and surgery.—Alison, Vol. III, page 24.

8. “He . . . shall divide the land for gain.” Verse 39. Reference is undoubtedly made here to the appropriation of the landed property of the church on the part of the state. This amounted to two fifths of the territory of the nation, and was sold to the general public to obtain revenues to carry forward the expensive government which then existed. “The confiscation of the land placed funds worth above £700,000,000 sterling ($3,500,000,000) at the disposal of the government, which they were enabled to squander with boundless profusion.”

9. The conflict with other nations at the time of the end. In this last leading specification which we shall notice we are again brought to the chronology of the prophecy. In verse 40, “at the time of the end,” the king of the south and the king of the north, the powers occupying these original divisions of the Grecian kingdom, are again brought to view, and these are represented as coming into active conflict with the French nation.

It is no coincidence of history which enables us to find at that period France in active conflict with the powers represented by these terms. Its history presents a striking fulfilment of the prophetic outline. Its conflict with the king of the north and the king of the south must be left for future study.

F. M. W.