Loading...
Larger font
Smaller font
Copy
Print
Contents
The Abiding Gift of Prophecy - Contents
  • Results
  • Related
  • Featured
No results found for: "".
  • Weighted Relevancy
  • Content Sequence
  • Relevancy
  • Earliest First
  • Latest First
    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents

    Huguenot Interest in Prophecy

    On April 13, 1598, there was promulgated what was known as the Edict of Nantes,—a charter of religious and political freedom. But this charter was never respected by the Roman Catholics. Nameless persecutions continued until revocation of that edict, October 18, 1685. Terrible were the experiences of the heroic Protestants that followed this revocation. All this is the setting for tracings of the true prophetic gift.AGP 226.1

    In his account of subsequent experiences relating to the gift of prophecy, which are of deep interest, Baird says:AGP 226.2

    “The Huguenots remaining in France in the last years of the seventeenth century underwent the most startling change of fortunes. They were robbed by their king of the privilege of professing a religion which, whatever that king had been led by misrepresentation to believe to the contrary, they ardently loved. Their public worship in the use of the Holy Scriptures, the familiar forms of Calvin’s liturgy, and the no less familiar psalms of Clément Marot and Theodore Beza, was silenced, Their spiritual leaders were in exile. Their ‘temples,’ or sacred edifices, from one end of France to the other, had been razed to the ground: the ruins stared them in the face and daily reminded them of the happier hours of the past, as often as they walked through the town or suburb. Regret was rendered more poignant in the case of many by the pangs of wounded conscience.

    “Men and women could not forgive themselves who in a moment of weakness, but not infrequently under a pressure of persecution which it is difficult for us to estimate, had made an insincere profession of another religion. To such no word of exhortation to repentance or of comfort came from living man or woman, save possibly from some layman in a secret and proscribed conventicle. Books of devotion and particularly the Bible, were all that remained; and of the Bible those portions seemed most appropriate to their condition, and were most eagerly read, that treat of the mysterious realm of prophecy and under figurative terms hold forth promises of the future overthrow of the wicked and the ultimate triumph of the cause of the oppressed.” “The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes,” Henry M. Baird, Vol. II, p. 180. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1895.

    Then this authority, after recounting certain supernatural manifestations, leads us to the point of our search:AGP 227.1

    “More important … and at once more permanent and far more intimately affecting the interests of Protestantism in its approaching efforts to rise into newness of life, was the appearance in the southeastern part of France of a number of persons, former adherents of the Reformed faith, who claimed the possession of an extraordinary gift of prophecy from heaven. The origin of the movement is obscure and uncertain.”

    “A Protestant, M. Caladon, of Aulas, whose words are so much the more interesting as his account bears the impress of unusual impartiality, expresses himself in very similar terms: ‘I have seen a great number of these inspired persons,’ he remarks, ‘of every age and of both sexes. They were all people without malice, in whom I perceived nothing that I could suspect of being their invention. They made very beautiful exhortations, speaking French during the revelation, some better, some worse. It should be remarked that it is as hard for the peasants of those regions to discourse in French as it would be for a Frenchman who had just landed in England to speak English.’” Id., pp. 183, 187, 188.

    The salutary effect of the rise of prophecy is next set forth by this author. Its effect upon the “flickering flame of Protestantism” should be duly noted.AGP 227.2

    “The immediate effect of the rise of prophecy was a quickening of religious life. The dormant masses were startled from their torpor by the rumor and by the sight of a strange and incomprehensible movement…. In the entire destitution of an ordained ministry, the prophets believed themselves to have been raised up by an extraordinary call, laymen though they were, to fill the gap and perform many of the functions of the former pastors…. They kept alive the flickering flame of Protestantism in the region of the Cévennes, at a time when it seemed about to be quenched.” Id., p. 190.AGP 228.1

    It is most significant that the Roman Catholic adversaries of the Huguenots of the period do not deny the facts of which they themselves were witnesses many times; only they attribute the phenomena to Satan.AGP 228.2

    We do not suggest that all the experiences recounted of the Huguenots are to be explained as manifestations of the spirit of prophecy. It would be strange, indeed, if with the gentle exercise of the gift there should not also be many cases of fraud or fanaticism—as that is the way Satan always works. But that there were genuine manifestations of the gift through men and women of God’s own calling and direction, seems established to the open mind.AGP 228.3

    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents