The United States in Prophecy.
By Uriah Smith
In previous articles on the third angel’s message of Rev. 14: 9-12, we have shown that that message is now due, and is being proclaimed through the length and breadth of the land. We have shown what constitutes the worship of the beast and image, and the reception of the mark, against which this message warns us. This is a living issue before this generation. And as it is the two-horned beast of Rev. 13 that enforces the worship of the beast and image, and the reception of the mark, it only remains to show that this symbol represents our own government, and that it is already far advanced in the work assigned it in the prophecy. This proved, our position becomes impregnable, and the application of the prophecy is placed beyond cavil or dispute. An exposition of the two-horned beast of Rev. 13 demands a hasty glance at the whole line of prophecy with which it stands connected. This commences with chapter 12, and ends at verse 6 of chapter 14. The symbols introduced are, a woman, representing the true church, and a dragon, leopard beast, and two-horned beast, symbolizing the earthly powers with which this woman or church is more or less persecuted and oppressed through her entire history. A very general agreement exists among expositors in calling the dragon a symbol of pagan Rome. This is beyond question correct. This dragon gives his seat to the leopard beast. Rev. 13: 2. Rome pagan gave its seat, the city of Rome, to the papacy. The leopard beast of Rev. 13: 1-10, is therefore a symbol of papal Rome. But this point is more clearly proved by the fact that this beast, in its chronology, its location, its character, its work, the time of its continuance, and the doom it meets, is identical with the little horn of the fourth beast of Dan. 7, which all Protestant commentaries apply to the papacy. The two-horned beast is “another beast,” says John. It therefore symbolizes a power in addition to, and different from, the papal beast, which the prophet had just had under consideration; that is, it symbolizes a power separate and distinct from that which is denoted by the preceding beast. This which John calls “another beast” is certainly no part of the first beast; and the power symbolized by it is likewise no part of that which is denoted by that beast. This is fatal to the claim of those who, to avoid the application of this symbol to our own government, say that it denotes some phase of the papacy; for in that case it would be a part of the preceding, or leopard, beast. It is claimed by others that the two-horned beast represents England, by still others, France, and by some, Russia, &c. The first, among many other fatal objections to all these applications, is, that the territory occupied by all these powers is already appropriated by preceding symbols. If the two-horned beast symbolized any of these, it would be a part of other beasts instead of “another beast,” separate and distinct from all the rest. It is a law of symbols that each one occupies territory peculiarly its own; that is, the territory which constituted the original government was no part of that which had been occupied by the previous powers. Thus Medo-Persia rose on territory not occupied by Babylon; and Medo-Persia and Babylon together covered all that portion of Asia known to ancient civilization. The Grecian or Macedonian kingdom arose to the west of them, occupying all Eastern Europe, so far as it was then known to the ancients. Rome arose still to the west in territory unoccupied by Grecia. Rome was divided into ten kingdoms; but though Rome conquered the world, we look for these divisions only to that territory which had never been included in other kingdoms. We look not to Eastern Europe; for that was included in the dominion of the third beast; nor to Asia; for that constituted the empires of the first and second beasts; but to Western Europe, which territory was unoccupied till taken by Rome and its divisions. The ten kingdoms which arose out of the old Roman Empire are enumerated as follows by Machiavel, indorsed by Bp. Newton, Faber, and Dr. Hales: 1. The Huns. 2. The Ostrogoths. 3. The Visigoths. 4. The Franks. 5. The Vandals. 6. The Suevi. 7. The Burgundians. 8. The Heruli. 9. The Anglo Saxons, and 10. The Lombards. These kingdoms have since been known, says Scott, as the “ten kingdoms of the western empire,” and they are distinguishable at the present day, some of them even by their modern names, as Hungary from the Huns, Lombardy from the Lombards, France from the Franks, and England from the Anglo Saxons. These ten kingdoms being denoted by the ten horns of the leopard beast, it is evident that all the territory included in these ten kingdoms is to be considered as belonging to that beast. England is one of these ten kingdoms, France is another. If therefore we say that either of these is the one represented by the two-horned beast, we make one of the horns of the leopard beast constitute the two-horned beast. But this the prophecy forbids; for while John sees the leopard beast fully developed, with his horns all complete and distinct, he beholds the two-horned beast coming up, and calls it “another beast.” We are therefore to look for the government which this beast symbolizes in some country outside the territory occupied by the four beasts and the ten horns already referred to. But these, as we have seen, cover all the available portions of the eastern continent. Another consideration pointing to the locality of this power is drawn from the fact that John saw it arising from the earth. If the sea from which the leopard beast arose, Rev. 13: 1, denotes peoples, nations, and multitudes, Rev. 17: 15, the earth would suggest, by contrast, a new and previously-unoccupied territory. Being thus excluded from the eastern continent, and impressed with the idea of looking to territory not previously known to civilization, we turn of necessity to the western hemisphere. And this is in full harmony with the ideas already quoted, and more which might be presented, that the progress of empire is with the sun around the earth from east to west. Commencing in Asia, the cradle of the race, it would end on this continent, which completes the circuit. Bishop Berkeley, in his celebrated poem on America, written more than one hundred years ago, in the following forcible lines, pointed out the then future position of America, and its connection with preceding empires. “Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time’s noblest offspring is the last.”
By the “four first acts already past,” the bishop had undoubted reference to the four universal kingdoms of Daniel’s prophecy. A fifth great power, the noblest and the last, was, according to his poem, to arise this side the Atlantic, and here close the drama of time, as the day here ends its circuit. To what part of the American continent shall we look for the power in question? To the most powerful and prominent nation certainly. This is so self-evident that we need not stop to pass in review the frozen fragments of humanity on the north of us, nor the weak, superstitious, semi-barbarous, revolutionary, and uninfluential kingdoms to the south of us. No; we come to the United States, and here we are led. To this nation the question of the location of the two-horned beast undeviatingly leads us. As an objection to this view, it may occur to some minds that the two-horned beast exercises all the power of the first beast before him (Greek ἐνώπιον, literally before his eyes), and does wonders in his sight; and how can the United States, separated by an ocean from European kingdoms, hold such an intimate relation to them? We answer, Space and time are annihilated by the telegraph. Through the Atlantic cable (an enterprise which, by the way, owes its origin to the United States), the lightnings are continually picturing to European beholders the affairs of America. Any important event occurring here is described the next hour in the journals of Europe. So far as the transmission of an account of our proceedings to the people of the old world is concerned, it is as if America lay at the mouth of the English Channel. And the eyes of all Europe are intently watching our movements. Says Mr. Townsend (New World and Old, p. 583):— “All the great peoples of Europe are curiously interested and amazed in the rise of America, and their rulers at present compete for our friendship. ‘Europe,’ said the prince Talleyrand, long ago, ‘must have an eye on America, and take care not to offer any pretext for recrimination or retaliation. America is growing every day. She will become a colossal power, and the time will come when (discoveries enabling her to communicate more easily with Europe) she will want to say a word in our affairs, and have a hand in them.’”
The time has come, and the discoveries have been made, to which Talleyrand referred. It is almost as easy now to communicate with Europe as with our nearest town. By these things the attention of the world is drawn still more strongly toward us; and thus whatever the United States does, it is done in the sight, yes, even before the eyes, of all Europe. U. S.