OUR EXPOSITION OF THE IMAGE.
Rochester, N. Y., February 26th 1852.
Dear Sir:
Your “Herald” I have perused with no small degree of interest, and from what extracts I have seen of “Elpis Israel,” I surmise it will no less fail to instruct and interest me.
Having for many years been a close observer of all the political movements in Europe and Asia, if peradventure in the light of prophecy I could discern the signs of the times; and in Jehovah’s great plan perceive who the Assyrian is as spoken of by the prophet, saying, “I will break the Assyrian on my Land and on my mountains tread him under foot.” I confess your reconstruction of the great image is entirely new to me, and not wholly digested by me as yet.
But I conceive that Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, is the great embodiment of all the evils of his predecessors—the Gold, the Silver, the Brass and the Iron; all centred in him the very personification of the wicked one; the last beast that is to go into perdition. And if in your idea that is the reconstruction of the image, and the Assyrian that is to fall on the mountains of Israel, then I understand you, and am with you in your conclusions.
And I pray God that He may enable you more and more to be like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.
Your valuable letter to M. Kossuth seems to me very much like truth, and cannot fail to make an impression on his great mind.
My heart rejoices to find you one of those men our God has raised up here and there, a free and untrammelled expositor of His prophetic word, knowing that things revealed belong to us and our children. That your humble student, along with you, may more and more know these things revealed, is the prayer of your brother in waiting for the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdom of our Lord. Even so, come Lord Jesus!
Yours in hope of eternal life when our king comes,
JAMES McMILLAN.
REMARK OR TWO ON THE ABOVE.
Our idea is well stated by our correspondent. We consider Nebuchadnezzar’s Image the symbol of Gogue’s dominion, when he, the King of the North—Daniel 11: 40-45, and of Assyria—Isaiah 30: 30-33, encamps with his army, drafted from all subject nations—Habakkuk 2: 5, on the mountains of Israel—Daniel 11: 45; Ezekiel 38: 8—on all sides of Jerusalem, and is in actual possession of the Holy City—Zechariah 14: 2, in the latter days—Ezekiel 38: 16; Daniel 2: 28. He is not the “last beast,” however. Till Gogue is broken, the lamb-horned, and dragon-speaking beast—Revelation 13: 11—is an Iron Leg of the Image—a co-partner with Gogue, yet inferior to him, in the majesty of the Greco-Roman-Dragonic dominion of “The End.” But when the Clay is sundered from the Iron by the stroke of the Stone-power, that is, when Gogue is broken, the Western Leg and Toes, or “Beast and the Kings of the Earth”—Revelation 19: 19, have still to be subdued. These are of the Fourth Beast of Daniel, which has to be slain, and his body destroyed in the burning flame by the Lord Jesus, his Saints, and Israel.
As to the word “reconstruction,” we have used this with reference to the construct state of the image in the king’s vision. It never has existed as a whole elsewhere than in the dream. In the Latter Days, however, the thing signified by the image will appear as complete in all its parts as the statue itself before it was smitten by the symbolic Stone.
EDITOR.
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