Israel’s Restoration and the Gentile Times
By Hiram Edson
THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES, And the Deliverance and Restoration of the Remnant of Israel from the Seven Times, or 2520 years of Assyrian or Pagan and Papal Captivity considered. THAT a restoration of a republican, national power and government of the remnant of the Lord's people was to be effected and established in the closing scenes of the present dispensation will further appear by consulting Eze. xvii; Isa. ii, Micah iii, 12; iv, and other like predictions. The last verse of Micah iii, predicts the abolition and uprooting of the government, power and nationality of the Jews and placing them under Gentile rule, as follows: 'Therefore shall Zion for your sakes be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.' 'The house,' named in the 12th verse, refers to the house of Jacob and house of Israel of verse 9, as its antecedent, and is synonymous with the house of the Lord in the first verse of chap. iv, and applies in these three verses exclusively to the Lord's professed people. 'The high places of the forest,' in this prophecy figuratively represents the supremacy of Gentile rule. This will appear by reading Eze. xxxi; xvii; Dan. iv, 10-12, 20-22; Isa. ix, 18, 19; Jer. xii, 7, 8; Eze. xx, 46, 47. Mountain, in symbolic prophecy, signifies government or kingdom. I understand then that Micah iii, 12, predicts that the 'mountain' or government and kingdom of Israel should be uprooted and abolished, and the supremacy of Gentile rule over them would take its place, and thus their enemies would rule over them. But the prophet Micah does not leave them in this condition under Gentile rule without foretelling the restoration of their government as follows: 'But in the LAST DAYS it shall come to pass that the mountain (i. e., government or kingdom) of the house (or people) of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain (or government) of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob,' &c. Micah iv, 2. By reading the first five verses of this chapter it will be seen that the government here predicted is a Republican government which tolerates and guarantees and protects the rights of civil and religious liberty, the right of worshiping God after the dictates of our own conscience under our own vine and fig-tree, or in other words, under our own government. Vine and fig-tree figuratively represent government. See Eze. xvii; Matt. xxi, 33-41; Isa. v, 1-7. Luke xiii, 6-9. Such a government as is here predicted, is found in the constitutional government of these United States of North America, symbolized [Rev. xiii, 11] by a beast coming up out of the earth having two horns LIKE A LAMB. These two LAMB-LIKE horns represent the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of these United States, which have tolerated, protected and maintained the heaven-born boon of civil and religious liberty, and hence were lamb-like in their character. The declaration of independence of these United States reads as follows: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created EQUAL; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men,' &c. The constitution based upon this declaration, pledges that all men shall be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of their own consciences. 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' The decision of George Washington with regard to the DESIGN of the Constitution is as follows: 'If I had the least idea of any difficulty resulting from the Constitution adopted by the convention of which I had the honor to be president when it was163formed, so as to endanger the rights of any religious denomination, then I NEVER should have attached my name to that instrument. If I had any idea that the general government was so administered that LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE WAS ENDANGERED, I pray you, be assured that no man would be more willing than myself to revise and alter that part of it, so as to avoid all religious persecutions. You can, without doubt, remember that I have often expressed my opinion that every man who conducts himself as a good citizen, is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, and SHOULD BE PROTECTED in worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience.'