The pouring out of this vial produced the most painful malignant ulcers upon the human body. Such ulcers are evidently not political calamities; for the symbol is drawn, not from nature, but from human life. Still, it is not drawn from a human being as a whole (in which case religious events would be symbolized), but only from his body. What, then, is the analagous object of which the human body may stand as a proper representative? Evidently, the mind. We would naturally pass from the bodily to the mental; and what painful ulcers are to the one, marring its beauty and filling it with burning anguish, such are blasphemous opinions and malignant principles to the other.
Considering the time for this plague pointed out above, the student of Revelation who is acquainted with the history of the past will scarcely fail to discern at once, in the striking points of this symbol, those horrible principles of infidelity, atheism, and licentiousness, which were spread so extensively over Europe during the latter half of the eighteenth century, and which were the most efficient causes in bringing about the fearful convulsions which followed in the French Revolution. That all may understand this matter in its proper light, however, it will be necessary to state some of the facts respecting this "noisome and grievous sore" that fell at that time upon the inhabitants of Europe. In writing upon the causes that led up to the French Revolution, Mr. Wickes gathered the following facts of history mainly from the Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge, under the articles headed Philosophists and Illuminati. I will quote his own language, as it is very pointed.
"Philosophists was a name given to several persons in France, who entered into a combination to overthrow the religion of Jesus, and eradicate from the human heart every religious sentiment. The man more particularly to whom this idea first occurred, was Voltaire, who being weary (as he said himself) of hearing it repeated that twelve men were sufficient to establish Christianity, resolved to prove that one might be sufficient to overturn it. Full of this project, he swore, before the year 1730, to devote his life to its accomplishment, and for some time he flattered himself that he should enjoy alone the glory of destroying the Christian religion. He found, however, that associates would be necessary; and from the numerous tribe of his admirers and disciples, he chose D'Alembert and Diderot, as the most proper persons to co-operate with him in his designs. He contrived also to enlist Frederick II., king of Prussia, who became one of his most zealous coadjutors, until he found that Voltaire was waging war with the throne as well as the altar. This, indeed, was not originally Voltaire's intention. He was vain; from natural disposition an aristocrat, and an admirer of royalty. But when he found that almost every sovereign but Frederick disapproved of his ambitious designs, as soon as he perceived their issue, he determined to oppose all the governments on earth rather than forfeit the glory with which he flattered himself, of vanquishing Christ and his apostles in the field of controversy.
"He now set himself, with his associates, D'Alembert and Diderot, to excite universal discontent with the established order of things. For this purpose, they formed secret societies, assumed new names, and employed an enigmatical language. In their secret meetings they professed to celebrate the mysteries of Mythra; and their great object, as they professed to one another, was to confound the wretch, meaning Jesus Christ. Hence their secret watchword was 'Crush the wretch.' The following are some of their doctrines, as found in their books expressly designed for general circulation. Sometimes standing out in their naked horror, at other times enveloped in sophistry and disguise. The Universal Cause, that God of the philosophers, of the Jews, and of the Christians, is but a chimera and a phantom—The phenomena of nature only prove the existence of God to a few prepossessed men—It is more reasonable to admit, with Manes, of a two-fold God, than of the God of Christianity—We can not know whether a God really exists, or whether there is any difference between good and evil, or vice and virtue—Nothing can be more absurd than to believe the soul a spiritual being—The immortality of the soul, so far from stimulating men to the practise of virtue, is nothing but a barbarous, desperate, fatal tenet, and contrary to all legislation—All ideas of justice and injustice, of virtue and vice, of glory and infamy, are purely arbitrary, and dependent on custom—Conscience and remorse are nothing but the foresight of those physical penalties to which crimes expose us—The man who is above the law, can commit, without remorse, the dishonest act that may serve his purpose—The fear of God, so far from being the beginning of wisdom, should be the beginning of folly—The command to love one's parents is more the work of education than of nature—Modesty is only an invention of refined voluptuousness—The law which condemns married people to live together, becomes barbarous and cruel on the day they cease to love one another.
"Such were the atrocious sentiments, though sometimes artfully veiled, which were disseminated in their books, and which, spreading all over Europe, imperceptibly took possession of the public mind, and prepared the way for the subversion of religion, morals, and government. As soon as the sale of the works was sufficient to pay expenses, inferior editions were printed and given away, or sold at a very low price; circulating libraries of them were formed, and reading societies instituted. While they constantly denied these productions to the world, they contrived to give them a false celebrity through their confidential agents and correspondents, who were not themselves always trusted with the entire secret.
"By degrees they got possession nearly of all the reviews and periodical publications; established a general intercourse, by means of hawkers and pedlars, with the distant provinces; and instituted an office to supply all schools with teachers; and thus did they acquire unprecedented dominion over every species of literature, over the minds of all ranks of people, and the education of the youth, without giving any alarm to the world. The lovers of wit and polite literature were caught by Voltaire; the men of science were perverted, and children corrupted in the first rudiments of learning, by D'Alembert and Diderot; stronger appetites were fed by the secret club of Baron Holbach; the imaginations of the higher orders were set dangerously afloat by Montesquieu; and the multitude of all ranks was surprised, confounded, and hurried away by Rousseau. Thus was the public mind in France completely corrupted, and the way prepared for the dreadful scenes that followed."
But there is also another chapter to the dark history of this "noisome and grievous sore." The same author says again:
"After Voltaire had broached his system of infidel philosophy, and brought it unto perfection, it was taken up by the celebrated Dr. Adam Weishaupt, professor of canon law in the University of Ingolstadt, and by him perfected as a system of light or illuminism. On the 1st of May, 1776, he founded, among the students of the above-named University, a secret society under the name of the Illuminati, whose avowed object was to diffuse the light of science, these secret societies being so many radiating centers of light. But the science taught was the most atrocious infidelity, and its object the overturning of all government and religion. Free masonry, being in high repute all over Europe when Weishaupt first formed the plan of his society, he availed himself of its secrecy to introduce his new order, which rapidly spread, by the efforts of its founders and disciples, through all those countries, and found its way even to the United States. It would not be possible here to give even an outline of the nature and constitution of this extraordinary society—of its secrets and mysteries—of the deep dissimulation, consummate hypocrisy, and shocking impiety of its founder and his associates—of their Jesuitical arts in concealing their real objects, and their incredible industry and astonishing exertions in making converts—of the absolute despotism and complete system of espionage established throughout the order—of the blind obedience exacted of the novices, and the absolute power of life and death assumed by the order and conceded by the novices—of the pretended morality, real blasphemies, and absolute atheism of the founder and his tried friends. Reference can only be made to these things as well-established facts.
"It is important here to bear in mind one or two facts, in order to realize what an engine of corruption this secret organization of the Illuminati was. One fact is, the high popularity which these secret societies at that period enjoyed. It was unbounded. There is something which commends such secret organizations most powerfully to the depraved human nature. Men love them because they are secret, and because they can wield such tremendous power. The other fact to be considered, is the absence, to a such vast extent, of the controlling elements of true religion in the European mind, and its predisposition to skepticism. The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century had broken the shackles of priestly Papal superstition over the human mind; and [true] evangelical doctrine not being introduced to supply the vacuum, the mass swung readily over from the regions of dark superstition to blank atheism. Thus were the elements ready prepared to hand for such spirits as Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot, Weishaupt, and others, to work upon, and by reason of their secret powerful agencies, to mould to their own liking.
"It was now this damning system of infidelity, under the specious name of philosophy, light, and science, spread with such untiring industry over the European mind, that unhinged the whole framework of society, and prepared it, like a vast magazine, for an awful explosion. All the principles that held society together in the fear of God and future retribution—regard for human law—respect for magistrates, parents, and the marriage-tie—yea, in the very distinctions of virtue and vice, had been unsettled or taken away. They had been reasoned down and laughed out of the world; and when these only restraints, which God has imposed upon human selfishness and passion were removed, what was then to hold back those fierce passions and that deep selfishness from the most unbounded excesses? God was no more feared—government was no more sacred—religion was a delusion—immorality was a lie—virtue was a name—the marriage-tie was a farce—modesty was refined voluptuousness: and when men were persuaded of these things, society began to roll and heave under the long swells of that portentous storm of wrath which was soon to break, in all its desolating fury, over the earth."