p. 28 | Prophecy and the War

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 10, 1871

Prophecy and the War.

Many professed expositors of the prophecies, are racking their inventive powers over recent events in Europe, to make many declarations of the prophecies, the application of which has heretofore been considered settled, apply to the present Franco-Prussian conflict. This conflict, it is true, is a startling one; the revolution that has been accomplished is tremendous, both in the suddenness of its execution, and the extent of its effects; and it is natural that the inquiry should be raised as to what place it occupies in the prophetic chain, and what bearing it has on the fulfillment of the word of God. But we should not allow ourselves to be so carried away with the excitement of these scenes as to rashly unsettle all past expositions, in order to find prophecies adequate, in our estimation, to the magnitude of the present crisis.

There are many prophecies which have been thoroughly studied in less exciting times than these; and an application of them has been carefully and judiciously made in the light of history. These applications have all along, at least till more recent years, been considered as correct and final. But some at present seem to be governed but slightly by these established landmarks; a tendency is manifested by them to concentrate everything upon the present; a striking event transpiring before their own eyes, startles them out of all exegetical propriety; and they immediately tear up all the past, and overwhelm the present actors in the drama of history, with declarations of prophecy, which have heretofore been considered as applying to other actors and other scenes. A well-connected chain of fulfilled prophecy in the past, seems to them of no account, if by any means they can make capital out of the material, for a present sensation.

As the reader may readily guess, Napoleon III. comes in for a large share of these false applications. He is about the worst abused man in this respect, that has ever lived, the most thoroughly abused of any one now on the stage of action. It makes the head whirl to think what, according to these expositors, the poor fellow is, and staggers the imagination to try to comprehend what he is not. He is the Man of Sin, the Antichrist, the destined monarch of the world, the prince of the covenant, the little horn of Dan. 7, the little horn of Dan. 8, the beast whose number is 666, the head of the beast that was wounded to death, the “vile person” of Dan. 11: 21, the subject of the last 25 verses of Dan. 11 entire, and how much more, we have not been able to sufficiently control our patience to inquire.

These positions, and perhaps more, are asserted in a little publication now before us, entitled “The Alarm Bell,” a document more calculated to excite alarm as to the sanity of the author, than in reference to the events which he predicts as soon to transpire.

Is Napoleon a head of the beast? Is such an application possible? The ten horns of the Roman beast of the seventh of Daniel represent the ten kingdoms that arose out of the old Roman empire. France was one of them. The same empire is represented by symbols, in Revelation, which have seven heads and ten horns, the horns in this case representing precisely the same kingdoms as the horns in the first. France is one of these horns. One of the heads of the beast as presented in Revelation, was wounded to death. Is that also France? In other words, is France at the same time both a horn and a head? When a head of John's beast was wounded to death, was a horn of Daniel's beast knocked off? Did either John or Daniel see any of their symbols made into a chowder as if run into by a lightning express train, at the rate of sixty miles an hour? Patience with such expositions ceases to be a virtue.

Again: Those who make France a head of the beast, have the wounding of that head fulfilled in the fall of the first Napoleon; and the healing accomplished in the coronation of Napoleon III. But lo! Napoleon III. has fallen; and now they have an excellent opportunity for another application—so excellent they cannot resist the temptation; so here goes: The fall of Napoleon III. is a “second fulfillment” of the deadly wound; for such an application they openly contend, and do not even blush. But has the prophecy anywhere spoken of a second wounding, making a “second fulfillment” necessary? Not an intimation of the kind. Thus prophecy is manufactured, when it is lacking, suppressed when there is too much, and stretched and perverted in any other manner necessary, to suit the phantasms of their own brains.

Of the absurdity of making the little horn of Dan. 7, identical with that of Dan. 8, of applying the last twenty-five verses of Dan. 11, to one man, making the king of France the prince of the covenant, and a dozen other things in this medley, we need not speak to any intelligent reader. With respect to the seven heads of the beast, they have always been supposed to denote the seven forms of government that successively appeared in the Roman empire, the seventh and last being the papal, which was wounded to death in 1798. No valid objection has yet been urged against this application; we can offer it without seeming to have lost our senses; then why not let it stand?

But has the present war, then, no significance as viewed in the light of prophecy? Undoubtedly it has; but we think this is secondary rather than primary, remote rather than direct; that is, that its significance pertains to other powers more than to the ones immediately engaged in the conflict. The prostration of France has the effect to fulfill prophecy, or prepare the way for its fulfillment, in two important particulars: 1. It has taken out the last prop of the pope's secular power, and caused the entire consumption of his temporal dominion. 2. It has prepared the way for the overthrow of the Turkish empire. For France is an essential member in the coalition formed to maintain the integrity of that empire; and the revolution which has rendered France unable to interfere in eastern affairs, has had such an effect on other nations, that they are unable to do anything without her co-operation. This state of things could not have been brought about in any other way so rapidly and effectually, as by the overthrow of France. But the loss of the pope's power, and the destruction of the Turkish empire, are marked events to occur at the very close of this dispensation. The present war is leading directly to these results. Has it not therefore significance enough, although its actors may not be personally brought to view on the inspired page? Does it help the matter to bury them beneath a heterogeneous mass of perverted prophecies?