The reign of the papacy has passed away—the forty-two months of the beast have expired, his power to persecute to death the saints of God has ceased, and he has been led into captivity. But the effect of his corruptions of the word of God remains, and there arises another power to enforce them. As the beloved disciple, our brother in tribulation, saw the ten-horned beast carried into captivity—a prophecy which had its fulfillment, as we have seen, in 1798—he immediately adds: “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” See Rev. 13:11-18.
Of this beast, about 1750, Mr. Wesley said: “He has not yet come, though he cannot be far off; for he must appear at the end of the forty-two months of the first beast.”
Doubtless Mr. Wesley was correct. He could not see this beast before he appeared. These descriptive prophecies are not to be understood till their application is developed in the fulfillment. A ruling power to arise in the world is pointed out, not by naming it, but by describing its features and acts in such a way as to distinguish it infallibly from every other power that shall arise. Then when a government arises in the right order and manner, precisely fulfilling the description given, it is positively certain that it is the power intended in the prophecy.
Now we claim that the description given of the two-horned beast has been so far fulfilled in the features and acts of the United States as to leave no reasonable doubt that this is the power pointed out in this prophecy. We will give some reasons for this belief; premising that it is reasonable to expect, or rather that it is unreasonable not to expect, that a government occupying the conspicuous place of our own, in the civil and religious world, should be noticed in the prophecies which mark out the world’s history down to the end.
1. It is “another beast.” The one with ten horns is called “the first beast;” this of course is the second; succeeding the first in the time of his reign, but not in the same dominion; for the deadly wound that takes away the dominion of the first is healed, and after this they are contemporary—the second causing his subjects “to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed,” and doing his miracles to deceive in his “sight.” The fragmentary remains of the old Roman empire, with its crowned heads and ruling hierarchy, constituted the first beast. This, though slain in 1798, has revived; and as it comprehended the whole European material, I submit that another beast or government existing thenceforward contemporaneously with it, must necessarily be found in another place.
2. The course of empire, as also the light of civilization and Christianity, has, like that of the natural sun, been from east to west. The first great empires noted in symbolic prophecy, Babylon and Medo-Persia, had their seat in Asia; Grecia was in Eastern Europe, and Rome still farther west, fully occupying the ground to the Atlantic coast. Civilization and Christianity have crossed the Atlantic, and the gospel sun, having compassed the globe, sheds its evening rays upon the American continent. Where else should be found the great empire which is to act so conspicuous a part, in connection with the church, in the last act of the world’s great drama? And where else should the closing message of probation, the message which is to warn the church of her last great conflict with earthly power, take its rise?
3. The time of the rise of the two-horned beast should evidently be, as Mr. Wesley says, at the close of the forty-two months of the first beast; for at the point where John sees the first beast go into captivity he beheld another beast “coming up.” The pope was taken a prisoner of war in 1798, and carried into captivity. At that point of time what new empire, dominion or power, was just rising to the notice of mankind? No one whatever in all the world but the United States. The present independent sovereignties of the New World were all, at that time, but colonial dependencies or appendages of the governments of the Old, except the United States. Our Declaration of Independence was twenty-two years old; the war of the Revolution was in the past; and in that very year, 1798, the treaty with France—the last tie that bound us in any way to the dominions of the Old World—was broken off, and the United States stood up boldly in the face of the whole world with this motto: “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.”
4. The manner of the rise of this beast, as contrasted with that of the first beast, gives a clue to its locality. The first beast, as also Daniel’s four beasts of which it was the fourth, rose up out of the sea. The winds strove upon the great sea, and the result was, these beasts came up from the sea. Dan. 7:2, 3. Winds are a symbol of war—these kingdoms arose by conquest. Waters are the symbol of “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” Rev. 17:15; Ps. 124. By the agitation of the great sea of nations the first beast with its ten crowned horns, was developed. In contrast with this, the second beast comes up out of the earth; as though, away from the strivings of the people, it grew up in a territory previously unoccupied. This points to the new government just then growing up peaceably in the wilds of America, like a plant out of a rich soil.
Since history unconsciously records the fulfillment of prophecy, we give an extract from the Dublin Nation, published some twenty years ago, which shows that the manner of the rise of the United States corresponds exactly with the prophecy of a beast “coming up out of the earth”:
“In the west an opposing and still more wonderful American empire is EMERGING. We islanders have no conception of the extraordinary events which, amid the silence of the earth, are daily adding to the power and pride of this gigantic nation. Within three years, territories more extensive than these three kingdoms, France and Italy put together, have been quietly, and in almost ‘matter of course’ fashion annexed to the Union.
“In seventy years, seventeen new sovereignties, the smallest of them larger than Great Britain, have peaceably united themselves to the federation. No standing army was raised, no national debt sunk, no great exertion was made, but there they are. And the last mail brings news of the organization of three more great States about to be joined to the thirty. Minnesota in the north-west, Deseret in the south-west, and California on the shores of the Pacific. These three States will cover an area equal to one-half the European continent.”
5. The lamb-like horns of this beast, with no crowns, present a striking contrast to the crowned horns of the first beast, and are suggestive of a mild and free government like our own. This, together with the fact, that when the image is called for, the call is made “to them that dwell upon the earth, [this beast’s territory,] that THEY should make an image,” (vs. 14), clearly points to a democratic, and not a kingly form of government, a government where the ruling power is in the hands of the people.
A horn is an emblem of power, whether civil, or ecclesiastical. The papacy was called a horn in prophecy even before the three were plucked up to give it place. It was at first a purely ecclesiastical power,54and received no civil jurisdiction till A. D. 755. Our government has no crowned rulers in whom its power is vested; but there are two fundamental, ruling principles which are the elements of its power and greatness. It is well known that it was to find an asylum from oppression, ecclesiastical and civil, that the first settlers of our country encountered the perils and hardships of a wilderness life, so far from the abode of civilization. They had felt the combined tyranny of kingly and priestly rule, and they desired, it is said, to found a state without a king and a church without a pope—a government that would secure to all, their God-given rights in all things, both civil and religious. The result has been a government founded upon the acknowledged principles of equal rights in civil affairs, and equal protection in matters of religion. The grand doctrine of the Declaration is, “That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And recognizing the rights of conscience, and of private judgment, and the fact that matters strictly religious, pertaining to man’s duty toward God alone, are above human legislation, the Constitution declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Was there ever anything more lamb-like! Equal rights and equal obligations—equal civil rights in the government, and in its management, and equal obligation to respect the religious rights of all others. Protestantism both in church and state—protesting alike against civil and ecclesiastical despotism. How mild, how lamb-like are these two principles! How God-like! for God is no respecter of persons. Where these principles are carried out there can be no tyranny, civil or ecclesiastical—there can be no slavery, and no religious persecution. No human government was ever before founded in such principles as these. None ever proposed so mild and gentle an exercise of power. How strongly it contrasts with the lion-like powers of the Old World—the “dreadful and terrible” beasts! It is not so much of a wonder that sanguine and superficial persons have imagined that this government was the everlasting kingdom which the God of Heaven was to set up.
We conclude, then, that the leading features of our government—Republicanism and Protestantism—are what are symbolized by the two horns like a lamb. What other government under heaven presents so striking a contrast to those of antiquity, as is implied in the change from the crowned horns of a beast like a leopard, with feet like a bear, and mouth like a lion, to these crownless, harmless horns like those of the gentle innocent lamb?
The speaking of this beast like a dragon, is the enactment of laws directly contradicting its lamb-like appearance and profession. This, with the exercising of “all the power of the first beast,” is mainly in the future, after the formation of the image, in the time of trouble following the close of probation. Then he will wage a war of extermination against the people of God, but the Lord will appear for their deliverance. Dan. 12:1; Rev. 12:17; 14:1-5. If any doubt the possibility of such acts under this free and enlightened government, we refer them to the accursed institution of slavery so long tolerated in this land of “equal rights,” and the persecution of Quakers and Baptists in New England. “If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”—What will they do when restraining influences are gone, and wicked men are given over to the power of Satan?