History of Government by Alonzo Trevier Jones

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 3, 1904

History of Government

By Alonzo Trevier Jones

V. THE PERPETUATION OF IMPERIALISM.

WE have seen that by the time of the conquests and the establishment of empire by Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, of Babylon, the spirit of independence of the peoples had been so completely broken down that the despotism of empire had secured undisputed sway. This was so effectually accomplished by Babylon, that the Scripture plainly defines it as “the hammer of the whole earth.” And, yet, Babylon had only perpetuated the hammering of the peoples which Assyria, with but a brief interval, had kept up for more than a thousand years. And this perpetual hammering, continued by Babylon, had effected at last what the ambition of every imperialist, since Nimrod, had ever hoped: the silent suffering and submission of all peoples to one predominant and absolute will.

This work of Babylon in perpetuating the destructive work of Assyria in this respect, is forcibly told in the expressive words of the Scripture concerning their dealings with the peoples: “First the king of Assyria hath devoured him; and last this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones.” While Assyria, in its lust of empire, had fed itself on the substance of the peoples, Babylon completed the work by breaking their bones and sucking the very marrow. And tho a single king of Assyria, as Sennacherib, might compel the nations and peoples to such submission as that, like terror-stricken chickens, “none opened his mouth or peeped;” yet, when the direct assertion of personal power by that particular king was passed, all people were prompt to stand up again for freedom and independence; but when Babylon, “the hammer of the whole earth,” had laid upon the nations and peoples her crushing strokes, the subjection of all was complete, and their submission final.

And now that the supremacy and absolutism of empire was attained in permanency, and the imperial spirit was absolutely free to demonstrate what it could and would do when entirely untrammelled and undisputed, this was demonstrated to the full, and that in such measure as to be a perpetual lesson to all peoples that should follow, even to the world’s end. And in order that empire might be saved from what it would certainly do if left to itself, God foretold to all by giving to Nebuchadnezzar the first head of permanent empire, a vision in a notable dream. In this vision God showed to Nebuchadnezzar that his empire, tho universal and so great, would be succeeded by another, inferior; which would be succeeded by another, further inferior; and that, in turn, by another, yet further inferior, which would go all to pieces; and then even the pieces would be dashed so utterly to pieces that they would be “like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors;” and the wind, as with chaff, would hurl them lightly away, and no place be found for them.

But this could not be believed even from God, by one who stood as the proud possessor of permanent, worldly, imperial power; and he undertook to disprove it by setting up against it the imperial idea.

God’s Truth versus Human Ambition.

To show the gradation and inferiority in the succession of empires, the Lord, in the vision, had presented the image of man composed of metals of inferior gradations from head to foot, the head only being of gold: this head of gold representing the empire of Babylon. But Nebuchadnezzar could not accept, as correct, any such representation as that. Accordingly, he, too, presented a great image, but all of gold from head to feet; thus excluding all suggestion that there should be even any succession of empires, much less a gradation of inferiority in succession. This great image, all of gold*, was but the king’s assertion that the golden glory of his empire of Babylon should continue forever.

History of Government BY ALONZO TREVIER JONES AUTHOR OF "TWO REPUBLICS," "EMPIRES OF THE BIBLE," "GREAT EMPIRES OF PROPHECY," "ECCLESIASTICAL EMPIRE," ETC.

And this embodiment of his idea, King Nebuchadnezzar set up; and required, under the terrible penalty of a burning, fiery furnace, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should accept it. But amongst his subjects there were some servants of the Most High God, who had studied, and who understood, the truth as to empire. These being loyal to God, and, therefore, holding His idea to be the correct one, refused to accept the imperial idea. Therefore, they were cast into the burning, fiery furnace, heated to the highest possible degree. But God preserved them, and they came forth unscathed, and with not even the smell of fire upon them. And thus God not only vindicated their course as righteous, but confirmed the truth of His idea of empire and changed the king’s word and also his idea of empire.

After this lesson, King Nebuchadnezzar was led of God; but when he had died the empire shortly demonstrated what it could and would do; that is, sink itself in everlasting ruin by intemperance. For when the abundant tribute of all nations flowed in an uninterrupted stream into the one treasury of Babylon; and the permanent submission of all nations and peoples had left the government in complete idleness so far as military expeditions were concerned; the imperial classes thus having an endowment of boundless wealth and abundance of idleness, intemperance of every sort grew to such a height that the empire sank in a night in the drunken, lascivious feast of Belshazzar, which he made “to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.” And this perfection of ruin was accomplished in only twenty-three years from the death of Nebuchadnezzar.

The Medo-Persian Regime.

In that night of drunken lasciviousness “was Belshazzar the King of the Chaldeans slain;” the mighty empire of Babylon sank; and the succession of empire passed to the Medes and Persians.

The Medes and Persians were peoples who had grown up through self-discipline and hardships of natural surroundings; and so, both by circumstances and by choice, they were a strictly temperate people. This Temperance of the Persians, and the value of it, was so well known amongst the neighboring kingdoms, that when King Croesus was contemplating war upon the Persians, one of his counsellors dissuaded him with the observation: “Thou art about, O king, to make war against men who wear leathern trousers, and have all their other garments of leather, and who feed not on what they like, but on what they can get from a soil that is sterile and unkindly; who do not indulge in wine, but drink water; who possess no figs nor anything else that is good to eat.”

And the Medes and Persians knew of the intemperate course of Babylon that was surely working her undoing. And they understood the situation so well that they calculated upon the intemperance of Babylon as a capital element in their plans for empire. For when Cyrus, the leader of the Medo-Persian armies, addressed his troops at the beginning of his expedition against Babylon, he said: “Do you know the nature of the enemy you have to deal with?—They are soft, effeminate, and enervated men; men not able to bear either hunger or thirst; equally incapable of standing either the peril of war or the sight of danger; whereas, you that are inured from your infancy to a sober and hard way of living—to you, I say, hunger and thirst are but the sauce and the only sauce to your meals; fatigues are your pleasure; danger your delight.”

It is further said of the Persians that “the only food allowed either the children or the young men, was bread, cresses, and water; for their design was to accustom them early to temperance and sobriety. Besides, they considered that a plain, frugal diet, without any mixture of sauces or ragouts would strengthen the body and lay such a foundation of health as

would enable them to endure the hardships and fatigues of war, to a good old age.” And Herodotus declares that before their conquests “the Persians possessed none of the luxuries or delights of life.”

A black basalt book of Nebuchadnezzar, containing a record of his building and beautifying of the walls and great edifices of Babylon, and a prayer to Marduk, or Merodach. This basalt slab is in the British India Office, London.

This is the people who succeeded to the world empire in the place of the idolatrous, luxurious, drunken, lascivious, imperial power of Babylon. But when Medo-Persia had succeeded to the imperial world-position and power of Babylon, again empire demonstrated precisely all that absolute empire in permanency could do. The invaluable experience and lessons of both the principle and practise of temperance were forgotten. The principles and the practise and the experience of temperance were all swept away; and that which was a new order of things to them, the untold wealth in the uninterrupted stream of tribute from all peoples and nations, governmental idleness by the submission of all nations, and the consequent intemperance, carried this empire over the same course that Babylon had gone to ruin.

Indeed, of them history records that “to such a height was their luxury grown, that they would have the same magnificence and enjoy the same pleasures and idleness in the army as in the king’s courts, so that in their wars the kings marched accompanied by their wives, their concubines, and all their eunuchs. Their silver and gold plate, and all their rich furniture was carried after them in prodigious quantities; and, in short, all the equipage and utensils so voluptuous a life requires. . . . This luxury and extravagance rose in time to such an excess as to be little better than downright madness.”

The Succession of Grecia.

And in this excess of intemperance the Persian empire sank, as had Babylon before her. The Persian empire sank before another new people, accustomed to hardships, and tho not so strictly temperate as were the Medes and Persians in the day of their accession to empire, yet, so far more so than were the Persians at their last, that they could be called a temperate people. For when the Greeks first met the Persians at Marathon, and before as well as afterward, it is recorded of them that they were “well disciplined troops under skilful and experienced commanders; soldiers accustomed to temperance; whose bodies were inured to toil and labor, and rendered both robust and active by wrestling and other exercises practised in that country.”

But the glory of wealth and luxury of empire that came to the Greeks, immediately robbed them equally of their power. Their mighty king, who won the world-empire before he was thirty-three, perished as the result of a drunken bout; the empire was broken to pieces, was held in four parts, then in two, but going the same course of empire—vast wealth, abundance of idleness, and consequent intemperance—till “the transgressors came to the full;” and again empire, having demonstrated precisely what alone empire can and will do when it can have its own way in undisputed sway, perished; and in its place there came empire by another new people, built up by hardships, self-discipline, and temperance.

Roman Dominion.

For at the time when the Romans were rapidly stepping to the very height of world-empire, three ambassadors were sent by the senate to the king of Egypt in his capitol. In their honor the king spread a banquet of “all the variety of the most assumpitious fare. Yet, they would touch nothing more of it than was useful, and that in the most temperate manner for the necessary support of nature, despising all the rest as that which corrupted the mind as well as the body, and bred vicious humours in both.” Such was the moderation and temperance of the Romans at this time. And hereby it was that they at length advanced their State to so great a height. In this height would they have still continued could they have retained the same virtues. But when their prosperity and the great wealth attained thereby, became the occasion that they degenerated into luxury and corruption of manners, they drew decay and ruin as fast upon them as they had before victory and prosperity, till at length they were undone by it. Being so undone, the empire of the Romans sank in annihilating ruin as had the empires before it.

Such is the repeatedly demonstrated course of empire. And thus it is also repeatedly demonstrated that such is precisely and only what absolute empire in permanence can and will do.

Cameo portrait of Nebuchadnezzar, a votive offering dedicated to Merodach; engraved on a black stone.