Continued from Chapter XXVII. The Tripartition And Burning Of The Great City

UNDER the Seventh Vial, the judgment takes a sudden enlargement. The cloud of wrath, which hitherto had hung suspended above the Latin earth, stretches out, and shrouds in its tempests both the north and the east, the seat respectively of Greek idolatry, and Mohammedan superstition. All the prophets have spoken of this great era, Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, in especial, and it is only when we compare their prophecies, and attempt to read coming events, obscurely and doubtfully at the best, by the light of their convergent predictions, that we learn something of the revolutions and changes that await the world. We lift up our eyes, and lo! it seems as if the whole earth were in motion.

The plains of the east, where the centuries as they passed saw all unchanged, are stirred now; their countless tribes have struck their tents, and are marching westward. The doors of the frozen north are opened once more, and the bands of Scythia issue forth to invade the south. All are a-foot, and on the march; a motley host they form, speaking different tongues, brandishing every variety of weapon; clad in every costume, from the furs of Lapland to the silks of India; tribes of ancient lineage, and races of modern origin, all moved by a common impulse, rally to one point, where some great event is to be transacted, which shall form a culminating epoch in history.

At the head of this army marches a great leader. Prophecy had named him of old time, and had specially foretold his rise at this period of the world’s history. Ezekiel chapter 38 styles him Gog, of “the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.” The land of Magog is that peopled by the Scythians. The Scythians are descended from Magog, the son of Japheth, and go under the various names of Turks, Tartars, and Scythians, and their territories extend from the center of Asia to the northern sea, comprehending the modern Russia. Rosh, which in our translation is rendered “chief,” the Septuagint makes a proper name, in which sense it denotes Russia.

This power (Gog) is to conceive the great design of conquering the world. With this view, he is to put himself at the head of the various nations which people the north of Europe and the north-west of Asia. He is represented by Ezekiel as supported by Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya; Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands, and many people. With this great following, he is to set out on an expedition against the west and south of Europe, tempted thereto, it may be, by finding its nations exhausted by mutual wars and social disorganization, and, deeming the hour come, to make a prey of their cities and lands, their commerce and riches.

The suddenness and irresistible force of the irruption is finely described,

This invasion will take place after several abortive attempts of the same kind. “I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws;” (Ez. 38:4a) but when the Divine purpose is to be served,

The same conquering power is foretold by Isaiah chapters 45 and 46 under the name of the ancient Cyrus. That power is girded with strength by the true God; it is to come like “a ravenous bird from the east” to execute God’s judgments upon His enemies; and, having fulfilled its appointed mission, it disappears. Immediately thereafter the skies begin to drop down, and the earth bursts into singing; which fixes this irruption of the nations to the times immediately preceding the millennium.

May not the reference of Daniel be to the same great events, when he describes the “king of the north” coming “like a whirlwind, with chariots, with horsemen, and with many ships, and he shall enter into the countries, and he shall overflow and pass over?” – Daniel 11:40

These form a class of prophecies the most obscure, perhaps, in the sacred volume. Nevertheless, certain great events are here foreshadowed with tolerable distinctness. First of all, we may infer that these predictions will find their fulfillment in some gigantic scheme of ambition, which will precipitate the nations of the north and north-east upon the rest of the world. Second, that this irruption will be contemporaneous with the final judgment of antichrist, or so immediately consequent upon it, as to form one grand tragedy with it. Third, that this great host, after executing God’s purpose of destruction upon the countries and nations, against which, drawn by ambition on their own part, and a righteous providence on God’s, they will come, they shall themselves be destroyed. Fourth, that this destruction shall overtake them when they are on the point of turning their arms against a people standing in a peculiar relation to God, and enjoying his special protection. Fifth, that the hand of God will be so awfully visible in their overthrow, that the event will arrest the attention of men, and pave the way for the conversion of the world.

It is scarce possible that we can be mistaken in fixing on Russia as the pre-destined leader of this grand invading host. Russia alone, of all existing powers, fulfills all the conditions of the prophecy. She occupies the territories from which this irruption is to issue. She is mistress of the various tribes and nations which are to form it. Her rise has been portentously rapid, springing up in almost our own day, from barbarous insignificance to the rank of a first-rate power, overshadowing two hemispheres, and, while herself safe from attack, she threatens all others.

But, mainly, her avowed policy runs in the very line, and tends to the very issue indicated in the prophecy. Dreams of conquest, such as never haunted the pillow of Napoleon, are the traditional and cherished purposes of the Czar. Since the days of Peter the Great, who is said to have first chalked out the bold design and left it as a legacy to his successors, the ambition of Russia has been to push her conquests in the East and in the West, and fixing her throne at Constantinople, to make herself the predominating power in the earth; in short, its sole autocrat and master.

Repeated attempts have the emperors made to consummate this grand design, but hitherto these attempts have not been successful. Russia has been “turned back.” -That she will make another attempt is, we deem, just about as certain as that Russia exists, and, with the dry rot of revolution, weakening every year the kingdoms of Western and Southern Europe, and the prodigious accessions of strength daily accruing to Russia from the development of her vast resources, we do not see what is to hinder that attempt being at length completed and crowned.

Is not, in fact, the realization of this scheme going on at this very hour before our eyes? Every summer finds Russia farther advanced in her march southwards. Every campaign sees new tracts incorporated with her already vast territory, and new tribes enrolled in her already prodigious armies. These new adherents are the very nationalities and races pointed at in the prophecy, and it does seem as if, in this irrepressible expansion of the Russian empire and this gathering to her standard of diverse tongues and arms, we saw the rise of that very host which prophecy foretells, and the beginnings of that invasion which is to “ascend and come like a storm,” and to be “like a cloud to cover the land.”

The restoration of Palestine to the Jews, the resuscitation of Poland, the erection of a powerful and constitutional Protestantism in Germany and Hungary, would do something to ward off the danger. They are the only measures that offer protection against this threatened flood from the northern quarters. But, were these steps to be taken, it is not unlikely that Russia might attempt to anticipate them, by precipitating her purposed invasion, before there is time to complete such a bulwark.

The Testament of Peter the Great has a curious interest in connection with the prophecies which we are considering. The authenticity of that extraordinary document is somewhat doubtful. This, however, matters little. Whoever was its author, it truly describes the policy of the Czars. It is the program on which they are acting, and which they have already, to a considerable extent, realized. But more, it is the self-same scheme of gigantic ambition which the prophets of Israel, three thousand years ago, sketched out as that which would be adopted by “Gog, of the land of Magog.” It is the “very evil thought” which was to come into his mind in the latter days. It would almost seem as if the framer of the “Testament ” had borrowed his idea from the old prophets. As, for instance, the last seven clauses of The Will. (Webmaster: This is referenced in a Wikipedia article, The Will of Peter the Great.)

“We must keep steadily extending our frontiers northward along the Baltic, and southward along the shores of the Black Sea.

“We must progress as much as possible in the direction of Constantinople and India. He who can once get possession of these places, is the real ruler of the world. With this view we must provoke constant quarrels at one time with Turkey, and at another time with Persia. We must establish wharfs and docks in the Euxine (Greek name for the Black Sea), and, by degrees, make ourselves masters of that sea as well as of the Baltic, which is a doubly important element in the success of our plan. We must hasten the downfall of Persia, push on into the Persian Gulf; if possible, re-establish the ancient commercial intercourse with the Levant through Syria, and force out way into the Indies, which are the store-houses of the world. Once there, we can dispense with English gold.

“Moreover, we must take pains to establish and maintain an intimate union with Austria, apparently countenancing her schemes for future aggrandizement in Germany, and all the while secretly rousing the jealousy of the minor states against her. In this way we must bring it to pass that one or the other party shall seek aid from Russia; and thus we shall exercise a sort of protectorate over the country, which will pave the way for future supremacy.

“We must make the house of Austria interested in the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, and we must neutralize its jealousy at the capture of Constantinople, either by preoccupying it with a war with the old European States, or by allowing it a share of the spoil, which we can afterwards resume at our leisure.

“We must collect round our house, as round a center, all the detached sections of Greeks which are scattered abroad in Hungary, Turkey, and South Poland. We must make them look to us for support, and then, by establishing beforehand a sort of ecclesiastical supremacy, we shall pave the way for universal sovereignty.

“When Sweden is ours, Persia vanquished, Poland subjugated, Turkey conquered—when our armies are united, and the Euxine and the Baltic are in possession of our ships—then we must make separate and secret overtures first to the court of Versailles, and then to that of Vienna, to share with them the dominion of the world. If either of them accepts our propositions, which is certain to happen, if their ambition and self-interest are properly worked upon, we must make use of the one to annihilate the other; this done, we have only to destroy the remaining one by finding a pretext for a quarrel, the issue of which cannot be doubtful, as Russia will then be already in the absolute possession of the East, and of the best part of Europe.

“Should the improbable case happen of both rejecting the propositions of Russia, then our policy will be to set one against the other, and make them tear each other to pieces. Russia must then watch for and seize the favorable moment, and pour her already assembled hosts into Germany, while two immense fleets, ladened with Asiatic hordes, and convoyed by the armed squadrons of the Euxine and the Baltic, set sail simultaneously from the sea of Azoff, and the harbor of Archangel. Sweeping along the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, they will overrun France on the one side, while Germany is overpowered on the other. When these countries are fully conquered, the rest of Europe must fall easily and without a struggle under our yoke. Thus Europe can and must be subjugated.”

We who now live, as also our sons, are, to all appearance, destined to witness a series of stupendous events, in which the hand of God will be visible to all the earth, and in which the most fearful judgments and the richest mercies will be signally blended. We are on the eve of the great final exodus of the Church; and mightier miracles than those which attended her first exodus will signalize this her last and final one. There is another pursuing host to be overthrown, there is another Red Sea to be passed through, and another song of deliverance to be sung.

Not in a day, not in a year, are we to expect that these changes will be consummated. If, in half a century from the present time, they are finished and over, the work may justly be regarded as great, marvelous, and rapid.

The Greek and Roman idolatries are to be swept from the earth; the imposture of Mohammad, and all kindred delusions, are to be smitten and to pass away; vast ethnical changes are to take place, implying a change in the general condition of mankind, and the peopling anew of many regions of the earth. And not till after these whirlwinds have shaken the world, and these fires have purified it, will be heard “the great voice of much people” (Revelation 19), “saying, Alleluia,” announcing that now the long-expected era of regeneration and blessedness has fully dawned.

Continued in Chapter XXIX. Harpers By The Sea Of Glass

All chapters of The Seventh Vial – By J.A. Wylie

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