UNIQUE INTERPRETATION OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S IMAGE.
( Continued)
THE ADVENTUAL BATTLE.
When Nebuchadnezzar saw the Stone smite the Image on the Feet he beheld an action symbolical of the blow that overthrows the Assyrian on the mountains of Israel. That blow is only the commencement of the war between the King of Israel and “the Powers that be.” The unity of the Image-empire is broken by the victory, but its elemental constituents still remain to be subdued. The Image is smitten on the feet, the members by which an union is established between all the Toes and the body of the statue. At present the Toes are indeed in being; but they ere not yet conjoined to the feet. They require to be daubed with some “miry potter’s clay” to connect them to the Iron. This uniting of them, by at best a brittle union, will be, we conceive, the result of the king of the north’s overthrowing many countries—Daniel 11: 40-41, and so establishing his dominion over “Gomer and his bands” who now possess the territory of the Ten Toes. This is smiting the toes; but not, we admit, the feet in the sense of the prophecy. The toes are smitten by the Assyrian, but not to death. They then still exist as kingdoms under reigning kings, but not independent, being like the kings under Nebuchadnezzar, and those of later times under Napoleon, who were kings of kings, as will the Assyrian be before he invades the land of Israel. This previous subjection of the Toes to one imperial chief is necessary to the bringing of all the nations to battle against Jerusalem—Zechariah 14: 2 and to their encampment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat—Joel 3: 12. What could induce ten independent and antagonist powers to go and lay siege to Jerusalem? If a crusade could be got up for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre they might; but then they must appoint over themselves One Head, or they could effect nothing. No. The necessity of the case is that they should all be united as kingdoms of one imperiality, that one policy may actuate them all; so that if “things come into the mind” of their Emperor, “and he conceive a mischievous purpose”—Ezekiel 38: 10, they may cooperate with him to carry his will into effect. This concert of action between the Czar and his kings being established by coming events, when he proclaims his intention to invade Palestine and to take possession of Jerusalem, the movable forces of the kingdoms under his sway will gather to his standard as they did to Napoleon’s when he invaded Russia. He marches them against Israel, and their Protector, Britain and her allies, who are prepared for the combat in the glorious land. He takes Jerusalem, and meets his overthrow at the hand of Jehovah’s Anointed, the Shepherd and Stone of Israel—Genesis 49: 24.
By this unexpected event the Feet are smitten. It is the Stone that smites them; and as their iron is commingled with miry clay, the Feet are dismembered from the Image, which can therefore stand erect no more. The gold, silver, brass, iron, and clay, are all shivered asunder; that is, Assyria, Persia, Greece and Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya, and the Ten kingdoms, no longer constitute one united dominion under the Czar, the Head of the Dragon-empire crushed by the Woman’s Seed—Revelation 20: 2. What then remains? Are the Legs and Toes to retain their dominions? Or are they to be utterly destroyed?
THE IRON LEGS OF THE IMAGE.
The Legs of the Image are not yet conjoined to the Feet. The Legs are visible and so are the Toes; but the iron legs, feet, and toes as one conjunct dominion with its subdivisions, are not yet seen. The Iron kingdom in distinct parts exists; but these parts at their points of opposition require to be tempered together by the plastic clay of the Assyrian potter. The Iron or Roman kingdom was finally divided at the death of Theodosius, A. D. 395, between his sons Arcadius and Honorius; the former of whom ruled in Constantinople over the eastern division or Leg of the Roman empire; and the latter in Rome over the western. Hence they were styled the Emperors of the East and West. The eastern leg was that now possessed by the Sultan; while the western comprehended Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia. Noricum included part of Austria and Bavaria, and Pannonia, part of Hungary; these with Dalmatia, Dacia, and Macedonia constituted the ancient Illyricum. But at the division, Dacia and Macedonia were assigned to the East. Britain belonged to the dominion of the Western Emperor, but is no part of the Image, therefore we say no more about it here. The Eastern Leg is entire; but what is the condition of the Western? IT is dwindled down to the attenuated jurisdiction of Austria and the Pope over parts of Italy and Illyricum: still the Austro-Papal dominion, called “the Holy Roman Empire,” is the Western Leg, which in modern times extends into countries not anciently subject to Rome. Now, though the territories of the Two Legs stand side by side, the Leg dominions are essentially antagonistic, having no bond of union between them. But when the Image is complete the same political vitality that energises the one must energise the other. This political union of the Legs into one dominion is indicated by the Toes being distributed on Feet united to both the Legs. If the ten toes were adherent to one foot, and the other had none, the indication would be that the Legs would be independent dominions in the latter days, one of which was sovereign over the toes: but as it is, the Legs will be one conjoint dominion with sovereignty over the ten toes, therefore they are distributed as the decorum of the symbol demands—five on each foot.
WHERE ARE THE FEET OF THE IMAGE?
We see then two separate Legs in existence, eight independent Toes, and two dependent ones, Lombardy and Hungary, whose kingships are vested in the House of Hapsburg; but where are the Feet, for Legs and Toes are not feet? The tibia is the leg bone, the tarsal bones are the toes; but where are the metatarsal which make the foot of the skeleton, and which unite the toes to the leg? Every one is bound to admit that they exist nowhere on the territory of the iron where they must of necessity appear for they are part of iron and part of clay.
INTERPRETATION OF “THE CLAY.”
Now, the proposition we affirm in view of the premises is, that a power must appear upon the territory of the Legs, which shall effect such a change in the political relations of things that the Legs and Toes shall be no longer antagonistic and disjoined, but e pluribus unum, united into one. The power that shall accomplish this is symbolised by the Feet of the Image; and the agent by which it is effected is styled the Potter; as it is written, “thou sawest the feet and toes part of clay of the Potter, and part of iron.” The clay represents the power incarnated in those who “shall mingle themselves with the seed of men;” and the Potter, the Chieftain who shall mould them into a vessel to suit his own views. His people, the wild or semi-barbarous hordes that follow him, will overspread the countries of the old iron kingdom; but this new inundation of barbarians from the north will not be like that of the fifth and sixth centuries. Then they “cleaved to another” people. The Goths, and Vandals, and other savage tribes of the north, melted down and lost their distinctive individuality in the populations of the empire they destroyed, so that now the institutions under which they live, civil and ecclesiastical, are the same: but it shall not be so with the Potter’s clay men. They will mingle themselves with the Iron men, and blend their kingdoms into one clayey dominion, but the union will not last sufficiently long for them to cleave together under a permanently new constitution of things not contemplated in the Image; as it is written, “they shall not cleave one to another even as iron is not mixed with clay.”
But what is to be done with this clay fabric of the potter? Hear the decree!
“To thee, mine Anointed, will I give the nations for thy possession * * * Thou shalt break them in pieces as a potter’s vessel”—Psalm 2: 9.
Keb a vessel from the root kahlah, any thing formed or constructed by a workman. The feet of the image are as a vessel to a potter. Hear also what the prophet saith of the Assyrian who in forming the Feet “ladeth himself with thick clay”—
“Because he transgresseth by wine, a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as the grave (sheol) and as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people: shall not all these take up a parable and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth what is not his! How long? And to him that ladeth himself with thick clay!”
That this from Habakkuk doth not relate to Belshazzar, but to Belshazzar’s antitype, the Assyrian, of the latter days, is clear; for the Lord saith it belongs to “the end.” The prophet saw the Emperor as he hath described him, covered, so to speak, with thick clay, being invested with nations not a few, and madly bent on conquering more. But notice how the prophet saw in vision his plundering and bloody career arrested!
“Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people (Israel) shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.”
Then shall “THE STONE cry out of the wall,” and “the beam out of the timber shall answer it;” for by the power of the awakened “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Thus “at the end the vision speaks”—Habakkuk 2.
THE POST ADVENTUAL WAR.
The moulding of the Feet out of the iron and the clay is the mission of “our sacred Russia” as it is styled by the Czar. It is this work that is on the eve of its commencement, and when it begins it will progress rapidly to its completion. The formative principle is his power which smites the nations and incorporates their kingdoms into his bipedal ferro aluminous dominion. Gog smitten on the mountains of Israel is the Feet smitten by the Stone; the consequence of which is the breaking of them to pieces. Now, when the Feet are thus broken by the battle of Armageddon what is the condition of the disjoined metals with respect to each other? The brittle bond of union is broken, and the Iron Legs and the toe-kingdoms are disconnected from Persia, Egypt, Khushistan, Libya, &c. Their combined forces will have suffered a great defeat; their power of resistance, however, will not be exhausted. Napoleon lost half a million men in the Russian campaign; yet he was exalted to raise new armies from his kingdoms, and to put off the evil day of his dethronement for about two years: so after the breaking of the Feet of the Image, the pieces will prolong resistance to the Stone. This infatuate resistance is necessary that the Stone may fall on them and grind them to powder. The fragments of the Iron kingdom are especial subjects of prophecy at this crisis, pertaining to their resistance after the battle of Armageddon. It is thus spoken of by John, saying,
“And I saw the Beast, and the Kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against the Faithful and True One that sat on the horse, and against his army”—Revelation 19: 11, 19.
They are met by the white horseman, styled the King of kings, who, attended by his body guards, the saints (termed “the armies of the heaven clothed in fine linen white and clean”) encounters them with “a sharp sword,” even Judah, who smites the enemy because their king is with them—Zechariah 10: 3-6. This post-adventual war is “the breaking to pieces together” of the pieces from the Feet to the Head to the Feet.
“Then (baidayin, at that very time) iron, clay, brass, silver, and gold, were ground to powder together (dahqu kachadah) and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them.”
At that very time and subsequently to the smiting of the Feet. The grinding of the fragments is not accomplished by one blow in an instant. One blow may demolish the form of a statue or a limb of it, by shivering it to pieces; but it requires heavy and oft-repeated blows to reduce the fragments to powder. The post-adventual war is the grinding process in which the metals and the clay are being reduced to dust. The gold, the silver, and the brass, the dynastics of the Lion, the Bear, and the Leopard, or of Assyria, Persia, and Greece, are abolished—“they have their dominion taken away;” yet their nationality continues “a season and a time;” but in respect to the iron and the clay, or the body politic, dynastic, and national, as represented by the Fourth Beast which had “devoured the whole earth,” it is “consumed and destroyed unto the end.” Victorious Israel shall be a third with “Egypt my people and Assyria the work of my hands,” saith the Lord; but the nationalities of the Iron and the Clay will be utterly broken up and driven away by “the wind,” * the fury of the war waged against them by the Saints and their people.
* (Jeremiah 4: 11-12—In this place an army invading a country swiftly and fiercely, destroying all before them, is expressed by a dry wind, and a full wind.)
The war which begins with the breaking of the Feet to pieces is carried on, on every side, at the same time. This is expressed by the words “at that very time” and “together.” No time will be given for the enemy to rally so as to invade the land. The war will be transferred to the countries to be subdued. The Beast and the False Prophet, the Assyrian’s dominion in the west with the Roman Bishop, whose existence he shall have sustained to the end since Austria shall have given place to the Czar—these are taken and destroyed by extraordinary and signal judgments: the remnant of the iron and the clay, not included in those symbols, as the armies of other states, are slain by the sword of Israel with great slaughter—Revelation 19: 2. The False Prophet lives as Bishop of Rome until THE STONE comes, and sinks him into hell— (The Lago’d Inferno or Hell-lake is near Rome: the real one is beneath her)—with “the Eternal City.” Thus the Assyrian, and “the god of guardian saints,” whom he honours in his kingdom, are utterly destroyed by the brightness of Messiah’s advent. The entire image is no longer an existence being superseded by the dominion of its Destroyer, which becomes as a great mountain filling the whole earth.
OBJECTIONS CATEGORICALLY ANSWERED.
We will conclude this article by answering categorically our friend’s questions, the testimony upon which they are predicated being contained in what has gone before. He enquires, then,
December 23, 1851. EDITOR.
