The future of the United States by divine appointment

Dedication

TT7E dedicate this little volume to the working class ot VV America. For — to them we owe the liberty we enjoy; they have stood by our country in every instance ; they have raised the provisions to feed their brethren in the field ; and at one and the same time fought her battles, tilled the soil, and are ever ready to bear their breasts to the bullets when her free institutions are in danger. God bless them, and forever give into their hand the country they so richly deserve.

THE AUTHOR.

Entered accordirs to act of Congress in the year 1887 by D. B. WRIGHT in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

Introduction

That either the monarchical form of government, or thft Republican form, must become universal on earth, is a selfevident truth. We Americans see very readily that the free. Democratic, representative form of government, of which we are the great successful representative, must and will supplant all monarchy and become universal. And it begins to be seen and felt by the crowned heads of Europe and the more enlightened and thoughtful of their subjects. The Empress Eugenie, several years ago, ventured the prophecy that in fifty years there would not be a crowned head in Europe. And an event that is so readily sanctioned by reason, and is such a natural and unavoidable sequence of our rapidly advancing civilization, and, above all, is plainly taught of God in the predictions of prophecy, must and will be among the events of subsequent history, and cannot be very far distant. The history of the world is but the history of God's dealings with the nations, and prophecy is but the history of nations pre-written.

Now, we claim in this unassuming book that God has a grand and glorious future for our nation, one that will make the heart of every true citizen swell with patriotic joy, and cause all lovers of Bible democracy in every land to rejoice with us. And in accomplishing it God will not use the great things of the world, great in the estimation of men, or the wise things of men. " But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty: and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen; yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are." (I. Cor., 1 — 27.)

INTRODUCTION.

We announce here in the beginning of our book that God intends to accomplish the great future of our nation through the instrumentality of the laboring classes.

God has always claimed the poor of this world as his own peculiar inheritance. When his Son was in the world it was not the learned, the rich, and the great, or the officials in either church or state that received him, but the " common people heard him gladly."

This book claims that God's ancient nationality, the Jewish Republic in the wilderness, and finally established in the land of Canaan, was a type of which our nation is the antetype, he established that nation to prefigure our glorious nation in the "time of the end."

And when he established that nation he did not employ the wealth and power, and influence of kings and heroes and statesmen, etc., but he took a band of degraded, ignorant slaves, laboring in a brick yard in Egypt under task-masters; non<- could be found poorer, or weaker, or in a more hopeless condition, and the first dash he made with them he shook proud Pharoah's throne to the dust, and nearly destroyed the most powerful empire in the world.

God uses only those things that are put in his hands freely and voluntarily to be used according to his will. Those possessed of wealth or power of any kind will not do this, but the poor of all ages have ever lifted their hands to heaven and prayed: "Our Father lead us."

God intended in raising up this nation to establish a nation in which the elective franchise should be in the hands of the laboring classes, and that the masses should rule, and not a hereditary aristocracy as in Europe, nor an aristocracy built upon a monied monopoly as in America, for it is a well known fact that in our glorious " land of the free," a monied monopoly 6eeks to throttle our government, and we call upon the working men of America to wield that mighty weapon which God has

INTRODUCTION.

placed in our fingers — the ballot — take to yourselves that mighty power, and rule this nation as God has intended you should.

We asked an ex-senator not long since what would he the end of this monied monopoly that was so rapidly gathering strength in our nation, and he replied, that it was the opinion of most men that it would end in the destruction of life and property. Well, now there is no need of that; if you will take to yourselves your right and your power to rule this nation before it s rested from you. No people have a right to resort to severe means while they hold in their grasp the elective franchise; when that is rested from them, then death to tyrants in any form is justifiable; that is why we sympathize with the poor people of Russia who are writhing beneath the iron heel of despotism. They have not the omnipotent ballot or if they have any power in that direction it is very suspiciously and vigilantly guarded, and neutralized by the few that, in Russia, seem determined cost what it will, to rule the many; that magnanimous few that ever seeks to rule the many have always been found in every age and in all lands, even in our beloved America.

Now, my countrymen, suffer this little hortatory as an introduction to our book, and put your ballot where it will tell for you and your children; where it will tell for liberty of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of conscience.

We shall now address ourselves to the task of showing God's hand in our rise, growth, and glorious future that awaits us, and also His direct interposition in the overthrow and utter annihilation of monarchy on the earth.

Preface

We do not claim to be a discoverer. The honor of the discovery of the following theory is, we think, due to the late Dr. Baldwin. We give his views in his own language, or nearly so, but we do not follow him strictly in our own views. We take him only in the main features. While we readily acknowledge that without him we could not see as far as he did, as we are privileged to stand upon his shoulders, we ought to see farther. We take up this g.reat subject because those who rank among the scholars of our day, hence have the power of research necessary to the great task, and ought to take it up and give the ministry as well as the laity some definite theory of prophecy, refuse to do so.

But they might reply to my friendly censure by telling me that I can afford to "tackle" it, as I have all to gain and nothing to lose, while they have all to lose and nothing to gain.

But we are encouraged in this bold adventure, feeling the blessing of God upon us in it, and emboldened by the fact that that time promised to Daniel when the Prophecies should be unsealed, has come, " the time of the end," not end of time, as some read; that would have been useless to have given to the world of mankind a revelation that was not intended to be understood until it was too late for mankind to be profited by it. Such a thought is too dishonoring to God. Nay, leave it to the heathen oracles to surround themselves with an imaginary mystery, well suited to awe the marvelousness of human nature. But God says His revelation was sent as a light into the world, and " that no prophecy of the Scriptures is of any private interpretation, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." A proph < y

PREFACE.

given in one dispensation of time, to transpire during a future period or dispensation of time, is sometimes sealed, or intentionally hidden from us, until the beginning of that period, when it becomes the duty of all God's enlightened people to discern them, and even the unconverted world that lieth in darkness is held culpable for not recognizing God's hand in the unfolding events.

While God gives the Prophecies in such occult language as to not be understood until they begin to be fulfilled, or, in other words, until they are unsealed, he' does hold us culpable for not discerning them when that time arrives. One of the most severe rebukes which Christ dealt to the people of his day was for their not discerning the fulfillment of the Prophecies, then being fulfilled before their eyes.

We claim for the fo lowing theory that it systematizes the Prophecies. It will be readily discerned by the Bible student that the true theory would of necessity throw all prophecy into a beautiful and harmonious system, and that no other theory could, hence the leading principle to be laid down, in the interpretation of prophecy, is that it must systematize and harmonize the Prophets. Error cannot be systematized; truth only can. All interpretations must coincide with the literal and evangelical doctrines of the Bible. It is a true maxim that "the perfect coincidence of events with prophecy is infallible prooi of the fulfillment of prophecy." Jesus held closely to this principle, strictly fulfilling all that the prophets had predicted of Him, and it is in recognition of this principle that we believe in Him as the true Messiah.

Many predictions refer to two, and sometimes more, events, as in the case of Matt* ii., 17, 18. If we look at Jer. xxxi. 15 > we will find those words applied to altogether another and different event, as Dr. Adam Clark plainly shows; also see Adam Clark on Isaiah, lxi. 1, where he shows the double application more forcibly as Jesus makes the application himself. It is tu

PBEFACE.

peculiarity of prophecy to give " here a little and there a little," hence one sentence will follow another, as wide apart in their application as the first and second advent of Christ. As in^ Luke iv. 18, there our blessed Saviour " went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read," and he read from the book of the Prophet Isaiah, and he stopped reading in the middle of a sentence. Now, it is evident to our mind that the omitted part of the sentence applies to his second coming to our world. He closed the book and sat down, and said unto them: "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." When He comes again will He not finish the sentence with propriety ?

THE UNITED STATES IN THE RESTORATION.

All the intellectual creatures of God throughout the universe have a dual nature; a spiritual nature that constitutes them religious beings, and a social nature that constitutes them political beings; hence God's great universal empire is in keeping with these two principles, and is of a dual nature. These two constitutional qualities in man "have resulted universally in some kind of religion and some kind of civil government. In a state of purity and perfection, as with the angels in Heaven, or with man as he was first created, this has resulted in a pure religion and a perfect civil government. At the fall of man, the rejection of the true God as monarch in both of these departments, led to the wildest disorder and universal misery. Probably the greatest corruption visible to mortals is brought to view in human governments.

A great mind has said: "It is a truth, established by universal experience, that all civil governments among mankind have conformed in principle and practice to the genius of the prevailing religion of the people." Religion has controlled the politics of the world in all ages. If the religion has been mild so has been the civil government; if it has been bloody and despotic, so has been the civil government; if it has been liberal and enlightened, so has been thu civil policy. This has resulted from a law of nature, by which inferior things are controlled by superior; and as the spiritual nature of man exercises supreme power over his conduct in his individual capacity, so does it in his aggregated state. To subdue man it was, therefore, necessary to subjugate his spiritual nature first, to regenerate him as a religious race, and then his political regeneration would follow inevitably. A physical victory might have resulted in a moment from the weight of Omnipotence, but a moral victory could not thus speedily be obtained from the eternal and immutable and self-existent principle of moral agency. As it is the natural result of all kinds of* religion to form its subjects into some kind of civil government, so it has been with the religion of the Bible.

The Jewish Church, as soon as it extricated itself from bondage, formed itself into a nationality. That nationality, on account of the backsliding and infidelity of the people, came to an end, as it had been predicted by their prophets. At the same time they predicted its rise again and establishment on earth as the Israel of God to endure forever. There is nothing more forcibly predicted in the word of inspiration than the restoration of Israel. All the prophets have dwelt upon it and spoke of its future glory in the most extravagant language, and use the loftiest types* and symbols, from Daniel to St. John, the Apocalypse, and tSi Christian world has ever looked and is still looking for its ri&e. Now, Israel restored is to be a nationality naturally arising c at of God's recognized Church. The Christian Church claims to be that Church. We have come in the place of the Jewish Church. As the Apostle Paul says : " The Jews being the natural vine, and being broken off' through unbelief, we gentiles, a wild olive tree, are grafted onto the natural stock." But he says also: " There is no difference between Jew and Gentile; we are all counted in unbelief and are all received through faith, whether Jew or Gentile, for he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is .outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God. So it is Chistian Israel or, in other words, Christ's Israel, that is to be restored, but the Jews are to be comprehended in it, for I truly believe our Hebrew brethren will yet come to see and believe that Jesus Christ was and is the true

Messiah which was promised by their Prophets, and they, through faith will be received of God the same as we Gentiles are received by faith, and they, com'Jng with that true inward circumcision of the heart, they will bear a grand and glorious part in the glorious restoration of God's Israel.

But, in order to recognize God's Israel when it is restored and appears among the nations of the earth, we must know what kind of a nationality it will be, what kind of a government it will have. You will all see at a glance that there never was and never can be but two kinds of government. According to the constitution of man, there can be but two kinds of civil or spiritual government. All governments must either be republics or monarchies. There may be ©various kinds of each, but there is no harmonious medium kind, nor can there be. There may be absolute, limited, constitutional or hereditary monarchies, but they all agree in asserting or practicing the doctrine that the right of governing does not exist in the consent of the governed. There may be autocratic, democratic, representative and confederate republics, but they all agree there is no right of government except by the expressed consent of the governed. These two can never exist in a blended state harmoniously, because their principles are essentially and originally antagonistic. Now, it is equally plain that God's Israel, restored to nationality, must be a den - ocratic republic.

First, because republican principles are the natural outgrowth of Christianity. Wherever Christianity is received into the human heart, and the man becomes imbued with its spirit, civil and religious liberty are at once felt to be the great blessings of man on earth. Again, nothing but a republic can be in keeping with the great law of love, as taught in the Gospel and throughout the Bible. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and strength and thy neighbor as thyself." This great law of God, the dual law of love supreme to God and equal love of neighbors, is justly called the great constitutional law of the universe, and the Decalogue, based upon it, is but the constitutional law of a single province of God's empire, as in our world. This great law of love to neighbor as to self, is a law conferring equal rights among all citizens of the same government. It is diametrically opposed to human legitimacy, p' >acy, and absolutism. It is not conformable to hereditary a. .stocracy, nor can it be; it is democratic, purely, and places all citizens of the same country upon a dead level as to right to rule, and confers exclusive favors upon none. God is, according to it the only one that has a divine right to exercise kingship, and He is, by consequence, opposed to all human monarchy and hates it as a feature of hell. In the first book of Samuel, 8th chapter, we have the opinion of God and Israel about kings, and it is one of great repugnance on God's part and repentance on Israel's. Israel asked Samuel to make them a king, but he was displeased with the proposition and prayed to God about it, and God replied to him, " they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. Now, therefore, hearken unto their voice, yet protest solemnly and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them." After a king was chosen, God signified his displeasure by a terrible thunder storm in wheat harvest, and the people were greatly terrified, for Samuel said, "I shall call unto the Lord, and He shall send thunder and rain that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a king," and the people said unto Samuel, " pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king."

)It is evident that God considers a human monarchy as exceedingly sinful, and as standing in direct hostility to Himself, and he has but little patience with it. It is also obvious that in the recovery of the world to good government, in the progress of Christianity, that human monarchy will share no part nor lot in the new organization. God is, therefore, hostile to human monarchy, because the system is iniquitous in principle, and he will destroy it because of its wicked nature.

If you reply, " the powers that be are ordained of God," we answer that this does not proye monarchy correct in principle, for God uses monarchy as he does other curses, for the sake of chastising evil people. Thus the king of Babylon punished the Tyrians, and Cyrus punished Babylon at God's instigation, and wicked nations need tyrants to punish them for their vice. God said: " 0, Israel, I will be thy king. I gave thee a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath." Monarchy is, therefore, a curse added to a vicious people, who are unworthy of freedom. In the spiritual and political redemption of the world, it therefore follows that monarchy must be overthrown. God permits human monarchies to exist, and he always has a purpose in it, but all the governments He has established among men have been of the democratic-republican form. The government of the ancient Jews, their first government, the one God organized for them, was a theocratic democracy. Now, the Hebrew system was a typical one throughout, in both Church and State, and Israel restored to nationality, that nation which should arise in the world and endure forever, and should develop into the millennial kingdom, and to which we are told Christ is to come, is to be its ante-type.

All who read the Bible know that this nationality is unequivocally promised to Israel in the Christian era, or latter day. Now, the United States, being a late and extraordinary Christian people, arising late in the Christian era, we enquire may it not be the veritable nationality of the Prophets. If it coincides with all the great characteristics predicted of a Christian nationality, then all doubt must end, and our country, says Mr. Baldwin, "rise into an importance and sublimity absolutely overwhelming." And this is what we propose to show beyond a successful contradiction: We propose to show in these papers that this great nation is the one predicted by the Prophets, and is the great millennial kingdom in embryo.

We have said that the Hebrew Church and State were the type of which the Church and State, in the restoration of Israel to nationality, were to be the ante-type. About 300 years after the Jewish Church started in Abraham, it went into bondage in Egypt, and through Joseph was connected with the throne; and about 300 years after the Christian Church was established, it went into bondage by being connected with the throne of the Roman empire. As the Jewish Church came out of Egyptian bondage, crossed a sea and established a nationality in a wilderness, so the Christian Church came out of spiritual bondage in Europe., the Union of Church and State, and crossed a sea and established a nationality in a wilderness.

As many people in the American colonies were not pious, and yet approved of the liberty taught by Christianity, so many of the Hebrews were unbelievers in the religion of Moses, and yet approved and contended for the justness of constitutional liberty. Those who imagine that ante-typical Israel was to be composed of pure and holy men altogether, are greatly mistaken. On this principle, the Hebrew Church, as a type, would have required that ever} member of the ante-typical or Christian Church should have been holy. As the Church of typical Israel (Hebrew nation) possessed true doctrine, though many who belonged to it were impure, so the commonwealth of ante-typical Israel (Christianity in America) possesses the true doctrine of human government, though many .vho enjoy its benefits are not true Christians. Many Christians get a later period blended with the rise of Israel; they

sad that in the restoration all shall be taught of the Lord and ill] shall be holy, etc.; but if they would read a little more fully, they would perceive that this is not said of the rise of Israel, it is of a later period.

In the end of time the angels shall gather out of the government of ante-typical Israel, or " out of the kingdom, all things that offend, and them that do iniquity."

As there were twelve tribes of Israel, and Joseph's tribe was divided, making thirteen, so William Penn had two colonies ceded to him, making just thirteen colonies in the restoration.*

The Hebrew Confederacy was organized into a more perfect union alter the exodus, by adopting a written democratic constitution, and so the Confederate colonies after the war of independence, in order to form a more perfect union, adopted a written, representative, democratic, federative constitution. The Hebrew constitution was submitted to the tribes for acceptance and ratification, and so was the American constitution. It is not a little remarkable that the Hebrew and American constitutions are the only two written ones ever known to have been adopted at the birth of any nationality prior to 1776.

The Hebrew bondage, consequent upon the descent into Egypt coincides with the civil and spiritual bondage suffered by spiritual Israel after the union of Church and State. The exodus from typical Egypt, the crossing a sea, the overthrow of Pharoah's host, the general thanksgiving, the organization of a republican confederacy of thirteen tribes, composed of three millions of people; the adoption of a written constitution by the tribes; the separation of the Church and State departments; their freedom from control of one by the other; their laws of servitude and naturalization, and their full organization and deliverance, under a noble leader in a wilderness, have all a complete correspondence in the United States of America.

We will take up now some of the literal prophecies of the

*Note Since these papers were written, we have seen in the public prints an account stating that they were about to bring the remains of William Penn to this country (ante-typical Israel) for interment. It would seem they were (withont intending so to do) trying to make ante-typical Israel answer its type in detail. Joseph's" bones had to be carefully *aken up out of Egypt l. d buried in Israel.

restoration of Israel. And that we may better understand the literal prophecies, we will do well to keep before us the fact that God revealed to his Prophets, the facts but not always the manner of them. Again He did not increase their scientific knowledge; they spoke of everything in keeping with the scientific knowledge of their day.

The word of inspiration is so full of this class of prophecies, all so minutely pointing out our nation, that we hardly know where to begin. Perhaps it would be as well to commence with that prediction that so minutely describes the first settlement of this continent and the first inception of our nationality. This is recorded in Isaiah lx. 9 : " Surely the isles shall wait for me and the ships of Tarshish, first to bring thy sons from far." To understand a prophecy, we must underBtand in what age of the world it was uttered, and where the prophet stood when he uttered it. This prophecy was made in Palestine in western Asia, called Asia Minor. There were vast countries at that day supposed to exist in the Atlantic, west of Gibraltar, and we are told by the best authority on history that they were termed "isles" by both Plato and Diodorus Siculus.

You will please observe that the Prophet represents God as speaking, and speaking in the first person, in the first part of the Prophecy, " the isles shall wait for me," and then he speaks in the second person, " and the ships of Tarshish, first to bring thy sons from far," as though he would say, " the great continent (lying on the other side of the then unexplored Atlantic) shall be kept for this purpose of which I am speaking. The hardy Norsemen may navigate its seas and touch upon its shores, but I shall frustrate every attempt to colonize. It ' shall wait for me ' until a great Christian people shall need it to flee to from spiritual bondage and oppression, and start the embryo of my Christian Israel, and then, Israel, 'the ships of Tarshish ' shall be ' first to bring thy sons from far.' "

It was a fact constantly kept in mind by all of Gods'

t IN THE RESTORATION. 17

Prophets, even at that early day, that " westward the course of empire takes its ways." Hence the Prophet knew that the glorious nation, which he was describing, was in the west, and hence, according to his knowledge of geography, must be in the region known as the " isles." " The ships of Tarshish " — Tarshish, as you all know, was the most ancient name of Spain. " Ships of Tarshish first." As prophecy notes only the greatest events of time, the term "first " must apply to some very important and famous circumstance. America answers to the " waiting isles," and " the ships of Tarshish first to bring thy sons," to the discovery of America by the ships of Spain. It has always seemed very strange to i;s that America was not colonized before it was; that this great and rich continent, capable of sustaining such a vast population, should lie here unoccupied, and that, too, when the population of Europe was so dense and needed this continent to spread out in. But God plainly tells us in this Prophecy that He preserved it until His Christian Israel was strong enough and the time had arrived for them to take possession and build up a great Christian republic, which should develop into the millennial kingdom. " Surely the isles shall wait for me"; the words "surely" and " me " plainly show that He intentionally reserved it for His own purposes. Again, Ezek. xlvii. 13: "Ye shall inherit the land according to the twelve tribes of Israel; Joseph shall have two portions." Joseph had two portions of old Israel, and thus there were thirteen tribes; and here we are informed that the same numler was to exist at the rise of Christian Israel. In the next chapter, the 48th, it is said these divisions shall lie side by side on a great sea, with their limits extending from sea to sea, " from the east side unto the west side " of the continent. Now, is it not an astonishing fulfillment of prophecy, when we see the United States taking its rise in twelve colonies, and William Penn, like Joseph, having two ceded to him, making thirteen in all, and they lying side by side on a great sea? But it is truly overpowering evidence of fulfillment, when we see that the language of the old charters was that they should " extend westward from sea to sea."