FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY.
PROPHECY DEFINED--OBJECTIONS TO SYMBOLICAL LANGUAGE ANSWERED--HISTORY
REVERSED, UNINTELLIGIBLE--NECESSITY OF PROPHETIC OBSCURITY--INFIDEL
DREAD OF PROPHECY--PROPHECIES CONCERNING BABYLON--THEIR
FULFILLMENT--PROPHECIES CONCERNING EGYPT--PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA
AND THE JEWS--CONCERNING THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA--TESTIMONIES OF
INFIDELS--MODERN PROPHECY--ITS FULFILLMENT.
An astronomer is able to predict the eclipses of the sun and moon,
because he knows the laws that govern the heavenly bodies. So also a
countrywoman can predict the time of hatching, and the kind of birds
that will come forth from a certain class of eggs placed under a fowl
in the act of incubation, because she has many times observed {131}
phenomena of this kind. Prophecy is only prediction in the highest
sense of the term. Our Heavenly Father, who knows, not merely the laws
that govern the material world, but also the mental, moral and physical
laws that govern humanity, can foretell the phenomena incident to man's
social and religious development. He who knows the origin of man--both
his strength and his weakness--and the extent and influence of the
powers of darkness, can foretell the result of that awful conflict that
has been in progress since before the foundation of the world. When
man, in obedience to law, shall have gained his higher development
and become as one of the Gods, he will, no doubt, obtain the power of
prophecy. Even in his present state, every true poet, philosopher and
scientist may be said to possess, in a certain degree, this gift; in
fact, so far as they can penetrate into the laws and mysteries of the
universe beyond the ken of ordinary mortals. Thus the steam-engine
was predicted eighteen hundred years before Watt heard the first
deep, regular respiration of this modern evangel. Thus, the magnetic
telegraph was expected for quite three hundred years before its first
tap of the keys announced its presence. When Shakespeare wrote, "I'll
put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes," it was nothing
but the instinct of the poet, peering with a glimmer of inspiration
into the darkened chamber towards which science was advancing. Bruno,
Galileo, Newton, Columbus and Washington had glimmerings of this
celestial light. The lines {132} written by Julia Ward Howe are as
truthful as they are beautiful:
"Lift up your eyes, desponding freemen,
Fling to the winds your needless fears;
He who unfurled your glorious banner,
Said it shall wave a thousand years.
A thousand years, my own Columbia,
'Tis the glad day so long foretold;
'Tis the glad morn whose early twilight
Washington saw in days of old."
But it is objected that the prophecies of scripture are obscure and
wrapped up in symbolical language. This objection proceeds from a total
misapprehension of the nature and design of prophecy, which is not to
unveil the future for the gratification of our curiosity, but to give
directions for our present duty and future welfare. The larger part of
the prophecies of scripture is taken up with directions how men should
regulate their conduct, rather than with information how God intends to
regulate His.
As to the objection against the symbolical language of prophecy, it
may be asked, how can heavenly things be revealed to earth-born men,
but by earthly figures? Who knows a single word, in our own or any
other language, to express a spiritual state, or mental operation,
that is not the name of some material state or physical operation used
symbolically? Spirit, memory, imagination, etc., are each a symbol
or figure of speech. In what way could God or man teach us to know
anything except by either showing us a picture of it, or telling us
what it is like, that is, simply by {133} type or symbol? These are the
only possible means for conveying heavenly truth or future history to
our minds.
When, therefore, the skeptic insists that prophecy be given literally
in the style of history written in advance, he simply requires that God
should make it utterly unintelligible.
We may gather much valuable information from symbolic language; but
history written in advance would be more difficult to decipher than
the inscriptions of Nineveh or Egypt, or the still more obscure
hieroglyphics of Central America. Imagine Alexander reading Bancroft
instead of Daniel. The Hebrew prophet he might understand, for he
himself was the fulfillment of a part of Daniel's prophecy, but what
could he learn from reading such a record as this? "In the year
of Christ, 1847, the United States conquered Mexico and annexed
California." He would say, "In the year of Christ--what does that
mean? The United States may mean the states of Greece; but on what
shore of the Mediterranean can Mexico and California be found?" What
information could Aristotle gather from the fact that the electric
telegraph was invented in 1844? Could all the wise men of Rome have
explained to Julius Caesar the following dispatch, if given in
prophetic vision? "Sebastopol was evacuated last night after enduring,
for three days, an infernal fire of shot and shell."
Should we diminish the vista to within two or three centuries, what
could Oliver Cromwell, aided by the whole British parliament, have
made {134} of a prophetic vision of a single newspaper paragraph,
written in advance, to inform them that "Three companies of soldiers
came down last night from Berwick to Southampton, by a special train,
traveling fifty-four and a half miles an hour, including stoppages, and
embarked immediately on arrival. The fleet put to sea at noon in the
face of a full gale from the south-west?" Why, the intelligible part
of this single paragraph would seem to them more impossible, and the
unintelligible part more absurd than all the mysterious symbols of the
Apocalypse.
A complete prophetic history of the steam-engine, steam navigation and
railways would have been necessary before they could have understood it.
The world has accepted God's symbols thousands of years ago, and it
is too late in the day for skeptics to deride the laws of thought and
forms of speech. David's prophetic psalms, Isaiah's celestial anthems,
Ezekiel's glorious symbols, Solomon's terse proverbs and the Savior's
lovely parables will be recited and admired ages after the foggy
abstractions of Parker and Newman, Carlyle and Emerson have vanished
from the earth. The Biblical symbols of the Thirst of Passion, the
Blood of Murder, the Rod of Chastisement, the Iron Scepter, the Fire
of Wrath, the Balance of Righteousness, the Sword of Justice and the
Wheels of Providence will photograph their lessons on Memory's tablet,
while the mists of the "positive philosophy" float past unheeded to
the land of forgetfulness. God's prophetic symbols are the {135}
glorious embodiments of living truths, while skeptics' theories are the
melancholy ghosts of expiring nonsense.
The prophetic symbols are sufficiently plain to be distinctly
intelligible _after_ the fulfillment; but sufficiently obscure to
baffle presumptuous curiosity before it. Had they been so written as to
be fully intelligible beforehand, they must have interfered with man's
free agency, by causing their own fulfillment. They hide the future
sufficiently to make man feel his ignorance; they reveal enough to
encourage faith in the God who rules it. God's prophecy is not merely
His foretelling something which will certainly happen at some future
time, but over which He has no control--as an astronomer foretells an
eclipse of the sun, but can neither hasten nor hinder it--but it is
the revealing of a part of His plan of this world's affairs, to show
that God and not man is the sovereign of it. Infidels feel the power of
this manifestation of God in His word; and are driven to every possible
denial of the fact. They feel, instinctively, that the Bible prophecies
are far more than mere predictions. They would rather endow every human
being on earth with the power of predicting the future, than allow the
God of heaven that power of ruling the present, which these prophecies
assert. Hence we find them frequently patronizing "mediums" and fortune
tellers of various kinds.
[ILLUSTRATION: THE RUINS OF BABYLON]
The prophecies of the scriptures are frequently predictions at once
unexampled and unparalleled. Nations could not perish before they
had grown, {136} nor empires be destroyed till they had accumulated.
Babylon, Nineveh, Damascus and Tyre had been growing and flourishing
for a thousand years, at the time that Jonah, Micah, Hosea and Isaiah
pronounced their sentences against them. At that time, mankind had not
yet seen a ruined empire. Judging from the past they had no reason to
expect {137} anything else than prosperity concerning these cities;
yet the prophets pronounced desolation and solitude against these
cities which were then the capitals of nations more populous than this
continent at the present time, and displayed buildings, a sight of
whose crumbling ruins is deemed sufficient recompense for the perils
of a journey of ten thousand miles. Every church, hall, school-house,
theatre and hospital of Salt Lake City could have been conveniently
arranged in the basement of the great temple of Belus. On the first
floor there was room enough for the whole adult population of Utah to
assemble, while the remaining seven stories would have still been open
for the accomodation of the citizens of Babylon. When the prophets
wrote their predictions, the walls of Babylon had been raised to the
hight of three hundred and fifty feet, and made broad enough for six
chariots to drive upon them abreast. From its hundred brazen gates
issued the armies which trampled under foot the liberties of mankind,
and presented their lives to the nod of a despot, who slew whom he
would, and whom he would, allowed to live. Twenty years' provisions
were collected within its walls, and the world would not believe that
an enemy could enter its gates. Nevertheless, the prophets of God
pronounced against it a doom of destruction as extraordinary as the
pride and wickedness which procured it. Tyre, the London of Asia, was
to "become a place for the spreading of nets" (_Ezekiel xxvi_ 5),
The infidel, Volney, tells us that, "Its commerce has declined to a
trifling, {138} fishery;" but even that implies some few resident
inhabitants. Rabbah of Ammon was to become, "A stable for camels and
couching place for flocks" (_Ezekiel xxv_, 5). Lord Lindsay reports
that, he "could not sleep amidst its ruins for the bleating of sheep
in the sheep-folds and the braying of camels in its ruins." Yet
sheep-folds imply that their Arab owners would occasionally reside
near its ruins. But desolation, solitude and utter abandonment to the
wild beast of the desert is the clearly-predicted doom of the ancient
world's proud capital: "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of
the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and
Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in,
from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent
there; neither shall the shepherds make their folds there. But wild
beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of
doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance
there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate
houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces" (_Isaiah xiii_, 19 22).
Every traveler attests the fulfillment of this strange prediction. "It
is a tenantless and desolate ruin," says Mignon, who, though fully
armed and attended by six Arabs, could not be induced by any reward
to pass the night among its ruins, from his apprehension of evil
spirits. So completely fulfilled is the prophecy, "The Arabian shall
not pitch his tent there." The same voice {139} that called camels
and flocks to the palaces of Rabbah, summoned a very different class
of tenants for the palaces of Babylon. Rabbah was to be a sheep-fold,
Babylon a menagerie of wild beasts--a very specific difference and
very improbable. However, after it was destroyed and deserted, one of
the Persian kings repaired its walls, converted it into a vast hunting
ground and stocked it with various kinds of wild beasts; and to this
day the apes of the Spice Islands, and the lions of the African wilds
meet in its ruins and howl their testimony to the truth of God's word.
Only a few years ago. Sir R. K. Porter and Dr. Rich, saw two majestic
lions in the "Mujelibe" or ruins of the palace.
The nations selected as examples of divine justice are as various as
their sentences are different--covering a space as long as from New
York to San Francisco and climes as various as those between Canada and
Cuba; peopled by men of every shade of color and degree of capacity
from the negro servant of servants, to the builders of the Coliseum and
the pyramids. The prophecies describe in their own expressive symbols,
the nations yet unfounded and kings unborn, who should ignorantly
execute the judgments of God. They also predict the future of over
thirty states--no two of which are alike.
If, for instance, a prophet should declare that New York should be
overturned and become a little fishing village--that Philadelphia
should become a swamp and never be inhabited--that New {140} Orleans
should become a dry, barren desert, and Chicago be utterly consumed
with fire and never be rebuilt--that learning should depart from Boston
and no travelers should pass through it any more--that New England
should become the basest of the nations and no native American ever be
president of the Union, but that it should be a spoil and a prey to the
most savage tribes--that the Russians should tread Washington under
foot for a thousand years, but that God would preserve Pittsburg and
Salt Lake City in the midst of destruction; then, if all these things
should come to pass, would any man dare to say that the prophet spake
the dictates of human sagacity, or the calculations of human reason,
and was not inspired by the Spirit of God?
Such was the character of the prophecies concerning the geographical,
political, social and religious condition of the greatest nations of
antiquity.
Considering the modes of ancient warfare, Egypt was one of the most
defensible countries in the world. Bounded on the south by high
mountains, on the east by the Red Sea, on the west by the trackless,
burning desert, she was able to defend the mouths of her river with a
powerful navy, to drown an invading army every year by the inundation
of the Nile. Egypt had not only maintained her independence, but
extended her conquests for a thousand years. She had given learning,
art, science and idolatry to half the world and had not yet risen to
the hight of her fame or extent of her influence until many years after
the {141} predictions against her were uttered. Yet it was prophesied,
"I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the
wicked; and I will make the land waste and all that is therein by the
hand of strangers. I, the Lord, have spoken it. Thus saith the Lord
God, I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the images to
cease out of Noph, and there shall be no more a prince of the land of
Egypt."
{141} [ILLUSTRATION: SPHYNX AND PYRAMIDS]
{142} The infidel, Volney, thus relates the fulfillment of these
predictions:
"Such is the state of Egypt. Deprived twenty-three centuries ago of
her natural properties, she has seen her fertile fields successively
a prey to the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Greeks, the
Arabs, the Georgians and at length the race of Tartars distinguished
by the name of Ottoman Turks. The Mamelukes purchased as slaves, and
introduced as soldiers, soon usurped the power and selected a leader.
If their first establishment was a singular event, their continuance is
no less extraordinary; they are replaced by slaves, brought from their
original country." (_Volney's Travels, Vol. I, page_ 74).
Gibbon, another infidel, states, "The most illustrious sultans of the
Baharite and Beyite dynasties were themselves promoted from the Tartar
and Circassian bands; and the four and twenty beys, or military chiefs,
have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by their servants."
(_Decline and Fall, chap. xlix_).
It is needless to remind the reader that the idols are cut off. Neither
the nominal Christians of Egypt nor the Mahometans allow images among
them. The rivers, too, are drying up. In one day's travel forty dry
water courses will be crossed {143} in the delta of the Nile; and the
traveler needs to carry water with him, who explores the ruined cities
through which once floated Greek and Roman navies.
Again, it was prophesied, "It shall be the basest of the kingdoms,
neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations, for I
will diminish them that they shall no more rule over the nations."
(_Ezekiel, xxix_, 15). Every traveler attests the truth of this
prediction. The wretched peasantry are rejoiced to labor for any one
who will pay them five cents a day, and then quickly hide the treasure
in the ground from the rapacious tax-gatherer.
"In Egypt there is no middle class, neither nobility, clergy,
merchants nor land-holders. A universal appearance of misery arrests
the attention of the traveler and points out to him the rapacity and
oppression as well as the ignorance of the inhabitants, who are equally
unable to perceive the cause of their evils or to apply the necessary
remedies. Ignorance diffused through every class, extends its effects
to every species of moral and physical knowledge."
Babylon was to be reduced to utter barrenness and desolation, Egypt to
slavery and degradation; but a different and still more incredible doom
is pronounced in the Bible upon Judea and its people: "I will make your
cities waste and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will
bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein
shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen,
and will draw out a {144} sword after you: and your land shall be
desolate and your cities waste." (_Leviticus_, _xxvi_, 31-33.)
"The generation to come of your children and the stranger from a far
land shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus to this land? What
meaneth the heat of this great anger?"
The following testimony of Volney is an example of the manner in which
God causes infidels and scoffers to fulfill the prophecies:
"I journeyed in the empire of the Ottomans, and traversed the
provinces, which were formerly the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria. This
Syria, said I to myself, now almost depopulated, then contained a
hundred flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages and
hamlets. What has become of those ages of abundance and of life? Great
God! from whence proceed such melancholy revolutions? For what cause is
the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed? Why are so many
cities destroyed? Why is not that ancient population reproduced and
perpetuated? A mysterious God exercises His incomprehensible judgments.
He has doubtless pronounced a secret malediction against the earth.
He has struck with a curse the present race of men in revenge of past
generations." (_Volney's Ruins, Book I_),
The malediction is no secret to any one who will read the twenty-ninth
chapter of Deuteronomy.
Of Jerusalem it was predicted, "It shall be trodden down of the
Gentiles." Saracens, Turks, Crusaders and pilgrims from all parts of
the earth {145} have been and are fulfilling this prediction at the
present day. Of the temple, it was said, "There shall not be left
one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." History has
preserved, and the Jews to this day curse the name of the soldier,
Terentius Rufus, who plowed up the foundations of the temple. The Roman
emperor, Julian, attempted to falsify the Savior's words, "Behold, your
house is left unto you desolate;" and sent his friend, Alypius, with a
Roman army and abundant treasure, to rebuild it. The Jews flocked from
all parts to assist in the work; but the combined forces were obliged
to desist from the attempt. "Horrible balls of fire, breaking out from
the foundations with repeated attacks, rendered the place inaccessible
to the scorched workmen and the enterprise was dropped." (_Ammiam
Marcellus, Book xxiii, chap_. 1).
Such is the testimony of a heathen, confirmed by Jews and Christians.
The Mahometan Mosque of Omar now rears its lofty dome where once stood
the Temple of Solomon, and no Jew is permitted to tread that sacred
spot.
Of the Israelitish nation God predicted that it should be a peculiar,
distinct people, dispersed among, yet separate from, the other nations
of the earth: "I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like
as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon
the earth." (_Amos ix_, 9). Again, "And yet, for all that, when they
are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither
will I abhor them to destroy them {146} utterly, and to break my
covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God." (_Lev. xxvi_, 44).
Here are four distinct predictions; national peculiarity, grievous
oppression, universal dispersion and remarkable preservation. The
fulfillment is obvious and undeniable. The infidel is sorely perplexed
to give any account of this great phenomenon. How does it happen
that these singular people are dispersed over all the earth, and for
eighteen hundred years have resisted all the influences of nature,
all the customs of society and all the powers of persecution driving
them toward amalgamation, and irresistible in all other instances. In
spite of the power of imperial Rome and the tortures of the Spanish
Inquisition, amid the chaos of Asiatic and African tribes, and the
fusion of American democracy, on the plains of Australia and the
streets of San Francisco, the religion and the customs of the children
of Israel are as distinct this day as they were three thousand years
ago when Moses wrote them in the Pentateuch, and their physiognomy
the same as when Shishak caused them to be engraven on the monuments
of ancient Karnack. Human sagacity cannot explain these facts as they
exist to-day, much less could it foretell them three thousand years ago.
Did space permit, it might be shown that the predictions against the
seven churches of Asia, were literally fulfilled. (_See Rev. i and ii_).
Ephesus, once famous for its magnificence and the great temple of
Diana, the mart of commerce {147} and the busy avenue of travel, was
the first to receive the doom of abused privileges: "I will remove thy
candlestick out of its place unless thou repent."
"A few unintelligible heaps of stone," says Arundell, "with some mud
cottages untenanted, are all that remain of the great city of the
Ephesians. Even the sea has retired from the scene of desolation, and
a pestilential morass, covered with mud and rushes, has succeeded to
the waters which brought up the ships laden with merchandise" from the
whole known world.
Laodicea, some of whose public buildings would contain 100,000 persons;
Sardis, that once contained more specie than is now in circulation in
the United States; Thyatira, that once manufactured the royal purple of
kings and princes; Pergamos, the seat of learning and the birth-place
of Galen, the father of medicine; all these cities are in ruins. Amid
the fallen columns and broken arches, the temple of Jupiter, of Venus
or of Diana, will equally elude the search of the curious traveler.
They have all received their doom according to the words of Jesus. Yet,
Smyrna, against which no doom was pronounced, is still the queen city
of Asia Minor; and Philadelphia, of which it was said, "I will write
upon him my new name," is still erect--a column in a scene of ruins.
The prediction of the Savior is fulfilled in its modern name, _Allah
Sehr--the city of God_.
The prophecies regarding the Messiah and their fulfillment might also
be noticed. The time, the {148} place, the manner of His birth, His
parentage and reception, were plainly declared, hundreds of years
before He appeared. Compare Micah v. 2, and Matthew ii. 1; also Isaiah
lxi. 1, and Matthew xi. 5; likewise Isaiah liii. 3, and Matthew xxvi.
56. These and many other passages prove that the character and mission
of the coming Messiah were pointedly foretold long before He made His
appearance in the flesh.
The one grand, unparalleled fact of the resurrection from the tomb
is also predicted, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt
Thou give Thine Holy One to see corruption" (_Psalm xvi_. 10). Often
did Jesus predict this event before friend and foe. Even His enemies
declared, "Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was
yet alive. After three days I will rise again." The last chapters of
the gospel relate the proofs by which He convinced His incredulous
disciples that the prophecy was fulfilled, "Behold my hands and my
feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not
flesh and bones as ye see me have. And when He had thus spoken He
showed them His hands and His feet. And while they yet believed not for
joy and wondered. He saith unto them, 'Have ye here any meat?' And they
gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb. And He took it
and did eat before them" (_Luke xxiv_. 39). Afterwards, "He led them
out as far as to Bethany and He lifted up His hands and blessed them.
And while He was blessing them He was parted from them and carried
up into {149} heaven" (_Luke xxiv_. 50, 51). And while they looked
steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold two men stood by them
in white apparel and said, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up
into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven,
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven" (_Acts
i_. 10-12). With our own eyes we shall see the fulfillment of this
prophecy. Every eye shall see Him. The clouds of heaven shall then
reveal the vision now sketched on the page of revelation.
In conclusion, let us notice a few of the prophecies given through the
Prophet Joseph, and their wonderful fulfillment. When Joseph Smith was
an obscure, unlearned youth, living at his father's house, in the then
sparsely settled region of western New York, the angel Moroni told him
that God had a work for him to do, and that his name should be had
for good and evil among all nations, kindreds and tongues. Men of all
classes are witnesses how literally this has been fulfilled.
Then, again, in 1832, when the United States were enjoying the
blessings of profound peace, the Lord declared, by the mouth of the
Prophet Joseph: "Verily, thus saith the Lord, concerning the wars
that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South
Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of
many souls. * * * * * *
For behold the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern
States and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the
nation {150} of Great Britain, as it is called," etc., (_Doc. and
Cov., Sec. lxxxvii_). The whole adult population of the United States
are witnesses of the fulfillment of this prophecy. For many years it
remained unfulfilled, and the Elders who proclaimed it met with scorn
and sneers; but, at length, arrived the terrible havoc and storm of
war. There had been many rebellions within the territory of the United
States. In Virginia had occurred Bacon's rebellion; in Maryland,
Clayborne's rebellion; in New England, the insurrection, controlled by
the Hartford convention, of 1814; in Western Pennsylvania, the State of
Franklin, had, at one time, held a political existence for nearly two
years. Then, by what human sagacity was it predicted that the war must
commence in South Carolina? Let the skeptic read and ponder.
{151}