VIAL 2 - BLOOD UPON THE SEA

"And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea." (REVELATION 16:3)

SIMILARITY TO TRUMPET JUDGEMENTS

As we have already learned, there is a similarity between the judgements, which fell on Imperial Rome under the Seven Trumpets and those, which fell on Papal Rome and its adherents under the Seven Vials. So just as both the First Trumpet and the First Vial affected the Earth, so the Second Trumpet and the Second Vial both affect the Sea. Just as the Second Trumpet had heralded the destruction, by the hand of Genseric and his Vandals, of the maritime Empire, and the naval power of Imperial Rome, so, in like manner, the Second Vial concerns the destruction of the naval power and the overseas Colonial Empires of the Papal nations of Europe, France, Spain and Portugal.

TWOFOLD NATURE OF THE JUDGEMENTS

The judgements, which fell on the Colonial territories of these Roman Catholic nations, were twofold in nature: -

BY REVOLUTION:

The contagion of the French Revolutionary spirit soon spread beyond the seas and it was not long before the most flourishing of the French West Indian Colonies was rocked by a revolt, inspired by the same Illuminati principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. From 1792 - 1804, the island of San Domingo experienced a blood chilling civil war, made all the more vicious by the racial factors involved in the struggle. The result was the death of some 60,000 Black inhabitants and the all but total extermination of the entire White French Colonial population. The territory was ultimately lost to France, becoming the Republic of Haiti, a land steeped in poverty, ignorance, violence, voodoo witchcraft and Roman Catholicism to this very day. Some of the most appalling outrages took place during this period, some too terrible to relate. Lothrop Stoddard in the classic book: "The French Revolution in San Domingo" tells of the butchery and bloodshed in Port-au-Prince: -

"All without exception have been massacred down to the very women and children…a young mulatto named Fifi Pariset ranged the town like a madman, searching houses to kill the little children. Many of the men and women were hewn down by sappers, who hacked off their arms and smashed in their chests. Some were poinarded, others mutilated, others passed on the bayonet, others disembowelled with knives and sabres, still others stuck like pigs. At the beginning a great number were drowned."

The Revolution was soon exported into the Spanish and Portuguese Colonial Empires in Central and South America, especially after Napoleon's invasion and conquest of the Iberian peninsula and the installation of his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as puppet king of Spain. By 1820, these Papal nations had lost almost all of their overseas possessions, and the maritime and commercial power, which the Beast nations had enjoyed for over two centuries, had been broken; independent Republics had emerged in place of the French, Spanish and Portuguese Empires, and these in their turn, to this present day, have continued to suffer from the revolutionary spirit, with coup following coup, and revolution following revolution. Today, this self-same spirit finds expression in the so-called Liberation Theology, the unholy alliance of Roman Catholicism with the forces of World Revolution, as seen in Nicaragua, Salvador etc. The Papal Colonies had died and the Sea had indeed been turned to blood.

BY WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN:

With the dawning of the year 1794, there began the fateful naval duel between Revolutionary France and Great Britain. By 1795, nearly all the French and Spanish West Indian islands had passed into British hands, and in 1797, the great naval victories of Camperdown and St. Vincent added to British prestige. Napoleon, who was now ruler of France, was not prepared to let matters rest. He dreamed of a mighty Empire under his control, and since Britain stood in his way, it must be destroyed. The plans for Britain's destruction are exemplified by the medal, which we have reproduced below.

As an immediate descent on the British Isles would have proved too hazardous, Napoleon determined to move first towards the East and seize the vast wealth of Britain's developing Indian Empire. His dreams were soon to be shattered when the British Navy annihilated the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Undeterred, Napoleon regrouped his forces, and having crowned himself Emperor in 1804, he assembled 2,000 vessels at Boulogne for an attempt at a direct invasion of Britain. This never took place and Napoleon's ambitious plans for conquest by sea met their doom in 1805, when the combined French and Spanish fleets were destroyed by the British under Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar. Truly the sea had been turned to blood for the Papal nations, France, alone, losing 600 warships in addition to many commercial vessels, as the trans-Atlantic Colonial Empires of the Beast nations came to death and destruction between 1792 and 1815.

THE RETRIBUTIVE PRINCIPLE:

The breaking of French naval power was indeed a Divine judgement, for one of the most common punishments imposed on the Huguenots, was to sentence them to serve as galley slaves, chained to the oars of the great French ships which traded between Europe, America and the West Indies. No mercy was shown to the poor Protestants - not even on account of youth or old age. Admiral Baudin, a prefect at Toulon, records a boy of twelve being sentenced to the galleys for the crime of:

"having accompanied mother and father to the preaching."

whilst David de Caumont, Baron Montbelon, was sent to the galleys at seventy years of age and Morlier at seventy-one. Even Louis de Marolles, celebrated counsellor of the King, was sent to the same fate, and on the express orders of the ungrateful monarch, he was to wear a heavy chain around his neck.

Truly, the cries of the Huguenot galley slaves had been heard in Heaven, and judgement had been fully carried out on their persecutors by the ruin of the naval and colonial wealth and power of France.

VIAL 3 - BLOOD UPON THE RIVERS AND FOUNTAINS

"And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood." (REVELATION 16:4)

SIMILARITY TO THE TRUMPET JUDGEMENT

The Third Vial continues to follow the pattern set by the previous two, and, just as under the Third Trumpet, judgement had come upon the Alpine regions, the river valleys and fountains of waters, especially of Northern Italy, by the hand of Attila the Hun, during the break-up of the Roman Empire, so, in like manner, judgement came upon the same areas by the hand of Napoleon Bonaparte. Advancing on the city of Venice, and totally unaware of the role of destiny he was fulfilling as the agent of Divine Retribution, Napoleon exclaimed: -

"I will prove to be an Attila to Venice."

THE NATURE OF THE JUDGEMENT

Revolutionary France had declared war on the German states in 1792 and on Sardinia in 1793. Soon the towns of Metz, Worms and Spires which were watered by the River Rhine, the very localities once wasted by the Huns, again became the scene of carnage and bloodshed. Piedmont and the river valleys of Northern Italy, the very areas, which had witnessed the cruel slaughter of the Waldensian Protestants (the Israel of the Alps), now witnessed scenes of awful violence. Milton's poetic prayer: -

"Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints,

Whose bones lie scattered

On the Alpine mountains cold."

was being answered a century and a half after those words were penned. I will once again quote from J. Bicheno's book "The Signs of the Times and the Overthrow of Papal Tyranny in France, the Prelude of Destruction to Popery and Despotism, but of Peace to Mankind" to illustrate the fulfilment of the Third Vial: -

"If the dominions of the House of Austria and the North of Italy be especially intended by the Rivers and Fountains of waters, as I verily believe they are, how apposite is the episode here introduced…what family, unless that of the Capets, and what government, unless the old government of France, has shed half the blood as that of Austria? The House of Savoy, too, is deep in blood. Read the histories of the Waldenses and Vaudois, who inhabited the valleys of Piedmont and who were among the first witnesses against anti-Christian corruptions and usurpations…the most horrible scenes of violence and bloodshed were exhibited in this theatre of Papal tyranny, and the small number of Waldenses, who survived, are indebted, for their existence and support, to the continual intercession made for them by the English and Dutch government…alas, all the waters of rivers have been purpled with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. But the time of retribution is come. I have read the names of cities and towns, of mountains and rivers in the reports of the marches and battles of the French armies; and of the flight of monks, priests and nobles, and I recollect the scenes, which there passed in the last preceding years, when the excellent of the earth there sealed their testimony with their blood and almost wearied the malice of their holy and ennobled butchers, and I am impelled to exclaim "Righteous art Thou, O Lord, for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets and Thou hast given them blood to drink for they are worthy."

The fall of Milan to Napoleon, the defeat of the Austrians at the bloody battle of Marengo, the fall of Northern Italy to the forces of Revolutionary France, with the subsequent losses suffered by the monarchies of Sardinia and Austria, along with the Roman Catholic Church, the three-fold persecutors of the Waldenses, all these were the fulfilment of the Third Vial.