These are the times that try mens/womens souls as war and death make things a lot clearer IMHO........
Even though christians say they abhor war and strive to be men and women of peace, they can easily be caught up in the 'war fever' and jingoism that comes when a danger or attack on their country occurs. The other side of the coin is history shows us when christians held back and did not take up the sword, they were slaughtered mercilessly.
“It has been computed that fifty millions of Protestants have at different times been the victims of the persecutions of the Papists, and put to death for their religious opinions.” Buck, Charles, A Theological Dictionary, containing Definitions of All Religious Terms; ..., Philadelphia, Thomas Cowperthwait & Co., 1838, article “Persecution”, p. 335.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b0aeee22c37.htm
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:U6WMXyYDyLQJ:www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/estimates.doc+%22waldenses%22+millions+killed&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us
GIBBON THE HISTORIAN ESTIMATES THAT PAPAL ROME HAS KILLED
50 MILLION
1. Pope Alexander the 3rd
in 1179 AD commanded that the Waldenses be exterminated, and so King Philip of France destroyed the Waldensian province of Picardy, the town being burned with fire, the Reformers also burnt alive, others exiled, and their property confiscated by the Romish Priests.
2. Pope Innocent the 3rd in 1198 AD started to put to the sword the Albigenses, promising paradise to all who murdered these Protestant peoples. In 1208 AD the town of Beziers in France was burnt to the ground and 60,000 slaughtered by the sword or burnt alive, terrible atrocities being performed on men, women and children.
3. Pope Paul the 3rd in 1534 AD commanded the Duke of Savoy to exterminate the Vaudois in the valleys of piedmont in Northern Italy, and in his “Book of Martyrs” Fox’s says ... ”the Duke entered the Piedmont valley with a great body of troops, and began a most furious persecution, in which great numbers were hanged, drowned, tied to trees and pierced with prongs, thrown from precipices, burnt, stabbed, racked to death, worried by dogs and crucified with their heads downwards. Those who fled had their goods plundered and their homes burnt.”
4. Pope Gregory in 1572 AD beginning on St, Bartholomew’s Day, and 60,000 Protestants died in a terrible slaughter which took place in various French towns at the hands of French troops. To commemorate this terrible massacre Pope Gregory caused a medal to be made, on which is shown an angel assisting a French soldier to slaughter men, women and children.
5. The Inquisition
in Spain, between 1481 AD and 1808 AD, Llorente has carefully calculated that 341,000 people were condemned by this institution, 31,912 were burned alive, 17,000 burned in effigy and nearly 300,000 tortured and condemned to severe penances
Here are some of the places where figures about religious persecutions are given. Dowling in his History of Romanism says
"From the birth of Popery in 606 to the present time, it is estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than
fifty millions of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors, an average of more than forty thousand religious murders for every year of the existence of popery."
-- "History of Romanism," pp. 541, 542. New York: 1871.
Commenting on this quote, a fundamental Baptist web site says the following:
For example, it has been estimated by careful and reputed historians of the Catholic Inquisition that 50 million people were slaughtered for the crime of "heresy " by Roman persecutors between the A.D. 606 and the middle of the 19th century.
This is the number cited by John Dowling , who published the classic "History of Romanism" in 1847 (book VIII, chapter 1, footnote 1). Only seven years after its first printing, it could be said of Dowling’s book, "it has already obtained a circulation much more extensive than any other large volume ever published in America , upon the subject of which it treats; or perhaps in England , with the exception of Fox ’s Book of Martyrs." Clark ’s Martyrology counts the number of Waldensian martyrs during the first half of the 13th century in France alone at two million. From A.D. 1160-1560 the Waldensians which dwelt in the Italian Alps were visited with 36 different fierce persecutions that spared neither age nor sex (Thomas Armitage , A History of the Baptists, "Post-Apostolic Times - The Waldensians," 1890). They were almost completely destroyed as a people and most of their literary record was erased from the face of the earth. From the year 1540 to 1570 "it is proved by national authentic testimony, that nearly one million of Protestants were publicly put to death in various countries in Europe , besides all those who were privately destroyed, and of whom no human record exists" (J.P. Callender , Illustrations of Popery, 1838, p. 400). Catholic historian Vergerius admits gleefully that during the Pontificate of Pope Paul IV (1555-1559) "the Inquisition alone, by tortures, starvation, or the fire, murdered more than 150,000 Protestants." These are only small samples of the brutality which was poured out upon "dissident" Christians by the Roman Catholic Church during the Inquisition.
Concerning the figure of two million killed, Bourne writes
Bertrand , the Papal Legate, wrote a letter to Pope Honorius , desiring to be recalled from the (crusade) against the primitive witnesses and contenders for the faith. In that authentic document, he stated, that within fifteen years, 300,000 of those crossed soldiers had become victims to their own fanatical and blind fury. Their unrelenting and insatiable thirst for Christian and human blood spared none within the reach of their impetuous despotism and unrestricted usurpations. On the river Garonne, a conflict occurred between the (crusade)rs, with their ecclesiastical leaders, the Prelates of Thoulouse and Comminges; who solemnly promised to all their vassals the full pardon of sin, and the possession of heaven immediately, if they were slain in the battle. The Spanish monarch and his confederates acknowledged that they must have lost 400,000 men, in that tremendous conflict, and immediately after it-but the Papists boasted, that including the women and children, they had massacred more than two millions of the human family, in that solitary (crusade) against the southwest part of France .
-- Bourne , George, The American Textbook of Popery, Griffith & Simon, Philadelphia, 1846, pp. 402-403.
In only one crusade, two million Albigenses were killed. How many must there have been altogether, and how many millions more must have been killed during the entire Middle Ages ! Another source writes
The Catholic crusade against the Albigenses in Southern France (from 1209-1229), under Popes Innocent III ., Honorius III . and Gregory IX ., was one of the bloodiest tragedies in human history. … The number of Albigenses that perished in the twenty years’ war is estimated at from one to two millions.
-- Cushing B. Hassell , History of the Church of God, Chapter XIV.
W. E. H. Lecky says:
"That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty, that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no power of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings." -- "History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe ," Vol. II, p. 32. London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910.
The following quotation is fromThe Glorious Reformation by S. S. [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]ER , D. D., Discourse in Commemoration of the Glorious Reformation of the Sixteenth Century; delivered before the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of West Pennsylvania, by the Rev. S. S. [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]er , D.D., Professor of Theology in the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. Published by Gould and Newman. 1838.
Need I speak to you of the thirty years’ war in Germany , which was mainly instigated by the Jesuits , in order to deprive the Protestants of the right of free religious worship, secured to them by the treaty of Augsburg ? Or of the Irish rebellion , of the inhuman butchery of about fifteen millions of Indians in South America , Mexico and Cuba , by the Spanish papists? In short, it is calculated by authentic historians, that papal Rome has shed the blood of sixty-eight millions of the human race in order to establish her unfounded claims to religious dominion (citing Dr. Brownlee ’s "Popery an enemy to civil liberty", p. 105).
Estimates range up to 7 to 12 million for the number who died in the thirty years’ war , and higher:
This was the century of the last religious wars in "Christendom," the Thirty Years’ War in Germany , fomented by the Jesuits , reducing the people to cannibalism, and the population of Bohemia from 4,000,000 to 780,000, and of Germany from 20,000,000 to 7,000,000, and making Southern Germany almost a desert, ...
-- Cushing B. Hassell , History of the Church of God, Chapter XVII.
Concerning the Irish rebellion , John Temple 's
True Impartial History of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, written in 1644, puts the number of victims at 300,000, but other estimates are much smaller. Some estimates are larger:
In addition to the Jesuit or Catholic atrocities of this century already enumerated with some particulars, they massacred 400 Protestants at Grossoto, in Lombardy , July 19th, 1620; are said to have destroyed 400,000 Protestants in Ireland , in 1641, by outright murder, and cold, and hunger, and drowning; …
-- Cushing B. Hassell , History of the Church of God, Chapter XVII.
So when it comes to picking a stance on noncombatancy we must decide individually, and I feel this is a personal choice, as each and everyone hasto choose how they will act when danger and death come. I know many who say they wont do anything to saved themselves but they answer differently or change their outlook when their children, friends and family or even nation are threathened with or face death. It is a heavy burden and hard to say how one will choose till they face it.
