Are the United States a Subject of Prophecy?
(Continued.)
In presenting further considerations which serve to identify the power brought to view under this symbol with these United States of America, we are brought to consider, 5. Its Character. This is all revealed to us in one sentence, short indeed, but abundant in meaning: [Rev. xiii, 11:] “And he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh; therefore the animal has a dragon’s heart. His disposition, his motives, intentions, desires, are all like a dragon; his outward appearance, his horns, which must of course be prominent objects to the beholder, his open profession, are all lamb-like. His appearance is good enough, and we might be led to look upon him as a whole, as quite an amiable creature, were it not that when he raises his voice in acts of authority, he speaks as a dragon: like the old fable of the ass in the lion’s skin; if he only had not brayed, his fellow-beasts would have taken him for a lion. But here perhaps some one whose patriotism may for a moment get the better of his judgment, will be ready to exclaim that the application must fail here; that such a character cannot be applicable to our good government, with its free institutions, and the civil and religious liberty which it grants us. Well, let us see. We inquire first what the two horns may signify. A horn is an emblem of power. The following texts will illustrate this: 2 Sam. xxii, 1-3; Amos vi, 3; Micah iv, 13; Hab. iii, 4; Dan. viii, 20-22. It does not denote civil power only. For example, the Papacy was called a horn when it was purely an ecclesiastical power. It was established as a spiritual dominion in 538; but it was not clothed with civil power till 755. See Goodrich’s Church Hist. p. 98. Mosheim’s Church Hist. Vol. i, p. 195. A horn then, denotes power either civil or ecclesiastical. The beast under consideration has two horns like a lamb. What are the two leading powers or principles of our own land? A moment’s thought is not necessary to suggest to any mind that Republicanism and Protestantism are two powers that answer most appropriately to the symbol of two lamb-like horns. We have intimated that no fault could be found with the profession of this government; it is very mild, very lamb-like. A lamb is the chosen symbol of innocence and meekness; and whatever it is used to symbolize, must possess these qualities. Such in profession is our government. The principles on which it is founded are just and Christ-like. What could be more just than the proclamation of civil and religious liberty? What more mild than placing all men on an equal footing, telling them that it is a self-evident truth that they are all created equal; and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And, in matters of religion, declaring that the Bible is the only religion of Protestants, and that every man has liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience? What could be more lamb-like than this? What could promise fairer for humanity? But, reader, this is only one side of the picture. This is but one phase of this two-faced, hypocritical beast. He first appears and acts before us in mildness and equity; but there are dark, dragonic deeds, the fierce promptings of a dragon’s heart, yet in reserve for the close of this drama. For amid all these professions of mildness and uprightness, we are startled by the voice of a dragon. He spake as a dragon. What is it to speak as a dragon? Let us go back a little and see how a dragon has spoken, for we have an example in the preceding chapter. The opinion is as unanimous that the great red dragon of Rev. xii, is a symbol of Pagan Rome, as that the first beast of chap. xiii, is a symbol of Papal Rome. We find an unerring test of the application of this symbol in the first five verses of the chapter, in the relation it sustains to the man-child, Jesus Christ. It was Pagan Rome that stood ready to devour the Saviour as soon as he was born. It was Pagan Rome that issued a decree at the time of his birth that all the children in Bethlehem and the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, should be slain; thinking thereby to include him who was born King of the Jews in the general massacre. It was Pagan Rome which spoke in regard to the crucifixion of our Saviour in a manner sufficient to illustrate our subject. When the Jews were growing clamorous for his death, how did this dragon power speak through one of its mouth-pieces then in Judea, Pontius Pilate? “Why,” said he, “I find no fault in this man; what evil hath he done?” Now we should suppose that any power making any pretensions to justice or humanity, would consider it an imperative duty to protect the innocent and deliver them from the hand of their oppressors. But did the dragon do so? No. Take ye him, said Pilate, and crucify him. He is innocent, there is no fault in him; nevertheless, crucify him! He acknowledged him to be guiltless, and then in defiance of all justice and humanity, delivered him over into the hands of the executioners. He professed one thing and practiced the reverse. Such, we conceive, is the character of the voice of a dragon. Is the inquiry now raised wherein the two-horned beast has spoken like this? wherein our government has issued unrighteous decrees contrary to its profession? We will notice. We do not claim that the dragon voice is yet fully developed, and the prophecy fully carried out in this respect. But enough has been heard to identify the beast, and to establish a precedent from which we are justified in expecting almost any result. Says the Declaration of Independence, “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;” and yet the same government that utters the sentiment, in the very face of this declaration, will hold in abject servitude over 3,200,000 of human beings, rob them of those rights with which they acknowledge that all men are endowed by their Creator, and write out a base denial of all their fair professions in characters of blood. In the institution of Slavery is more especially manifested, thus far, the dragon spirit that dwells in the heart of this hypocritical nation. The fearful strides which this government has made on this question up to the present, afford small ground of hope for the future. The demands of Slavery are imperious, and must be complied with. It began, in 1793, by asking more territory. The territory is purchased and surrendered to its service. Again, it asks for more slave States to equalize its power in the Senate; and to soothe it into quiet, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi are successively opened to its foul embrace. It wants more privileges still. The slaves, though mere chattels, must have some influence in the ballot box. A compromise is effected by rendering five slaves equal to three white men in political influence: in other words, a slave on election day becomes three-fifths of a man! on all other days he is a thing! Again, when Slavery sought to extend its tyranny into Missouri, and it was about to be admitted as a slave State in 1820, the North demurred. But the North through weariness or fear again yielded; and with the solemn pledge on the part of the South that the territory north of 36 30 should be forever consecrated to freedom, Missouri was added to the growing list of Slave States. But the grasping ambition of slavery is unquenchable. Texas is wanted to consummate its purposes. The imbecile North bows assent, as ever, to the dictates of the usurper; and Texas is gained to slavery, to say nothing of Utah and New Mexico. Further, the slave seeks sometimes to obtain those rights which he possesses in common with all men, and flies to a place of refuge. Slavery cannot bear this. It commands the North to deliver them up; and consequently, that monster of human iniquity, the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850, becomes a law. Again, slavery must have more states, and that too north of the limits assigned to it in 1820. To accomplish this, the sacred barriers then erected against the further spread of this withering curse, must be demolished; the hand of sacrilege must be raised to violate a most solemn pledge. Accordingly a bill is introduced in 1854 for the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise. Like the occasional gleam of lightning before the terrific tempest, so a little of the practical issue of these dragon strides has been seen of late in flames, rapine, robbery, desolation and death on the plains of Kansas. But this is not all. The restoration of the African slave trade is beginning to be confidently talked of by some; and slavery is seeking to enter the Free States with its property. The last triumph it has achieved is found in the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case which was pronounced by Judge Taney on Friday, March 6th, 1857. It is, 1. That Africans are regarded wholly as property, in the constitution, and are incapable under that instrument of ever attaining the position of citizens. 2. That a slave taken into a Free State is not therefore entitled to his freedom. 3. That Congress has no rightful power to prohibit Slavery in the Territories; hence the Missouri Restriction is unconstitutional. Such is the decision of the Supreme Court of this nation on this question; and in view of this, the declaration of Senator Foote, we think it was, may not prove merely an empty boast—that he would one day call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill. Says Erdius Tenney in a discourse preached at Lyme, N. H. on the day of the last annual thanksgiving, “We may sleep over the encroachments of Slavery, but we sleep upon the mouth of a volcano. When its general dominion, which seems approaching in mad haste, is perfected, an Egyptian darkness covers us—an Egyptian retribution has overtaken us. The experience of other nations, the divine rebukes of similar sins far less aggravated, warn us of a hastening catastrophe, more signal and terrific than was visited upon those nations, as our guilt is deeper. Our only hope of preserving our children, our civil and religious institutions, and our country from the debasing, destructive influences, the tyranny of Slavery, is in God; and without speedy, manly, determined resistance of its encroachments, even this hope is presumption.”157In view of the facts thus far noticed, what may we not look for in the future? Can any one candidly consider these things, and tell us what atrocities, however dragonic and devilish, we have not reason to expect from the precedents already given us? Who may tell us that the voice of a dragon is not frequently heard issuing from the halls of Congress?
(To be Continued.)