The United States Have Arisen In The Exact Manner In Which John Saw The Two-horned Beast Coming Up.
The manner in which the two-horned beast was seen coming up shows, equally with its location and its chronology, that it is a symbol of these United States. John says he saw the beast coming up "out of the earth." And this expression must have been designedly used to point out the contrast between the rise of this beast, and that of other national prophetic symbols. The four beasts of Daniel 7, and the leopard beast of Rev. 13, all arose out of the sea. Says Daniel, The four winds of Heaven strove upon the great sea, and four beasts came up from the sea. The sea denotes peoples, nations, and tongues, Rev. 17:15; and the winds denote political strife and commotion. Jer. 35:32, 33. There was then, in this scene, the dire commotion of nature's mightiest elements, the wind above, the waters benneath, the fury of the gale, the roaring and dashing of the waves, and the tumult of the raging storm; and in the midst of this war of elements, as if aroused from the depths of the sea by the fearful commotion, these beasts one after another appeared. In other words, the governments of which these beasts were symbols owed their origin to movements among the people which would be well represented by the sea lashed into foam by the sweeping gale; they arose by the upheaveals of revolution, and through the strife of war.
But when the prophet beholds the rising of the two-horned beast, how different the scene! No political tempest sweeps the horizon, no armies clash together like the waves of the sea. He does not behold the troubled and restless surface of the waters, but a calm and immovable expanse of earth. And out of this earth, like a plant growing up in a quiet and sheltered spot, he sees this beast, bearing on his head the horns of a lamb, those eloquent symbols of youth and innocence, daily augmenting in bodily proportions, and daily increasing in physical strength.
Some may here point to the war of the Revolution as an event which destroys the force of this application; but this furnishes no objection; for 1. That war was at least fifteen years in the past when the two-horned beast was introduced into the field of this vision; and 2. The war of the Revolution was not a war of conquest. It was not waged to overthrow any other kingdom, and build this government on its ruins, but only to defend the just rights of the American people. An act of resistance against continual attempts of injustice and tyranny, cannot certainly be placed in the same catalogue with wars of aggression and conquest. The same may be said of the war of 1812. Hence, these conflicts do not even partake of the nature of objections to the application here set forth.
The word which John uses to describe the manner in which this beast comes up is very expressive. It is ἀναβαῑνον (anabainon), one of the prominent definitions of which is, "to grow or spring up as a plant." And it is a remarkable fact that this very figure has been chosen by political writers, as the one which best illustrates the rise of our government. Mr. G.A. Townsend, in his work entitled, "The New World Compared with the Old," p. 462, says:—
"Since America was discovered, she has been a subject of revolutionary thought in Europe. The mystery of her coming forth from vacancy, the marvel of her wealth in gold and silver, the spectacle of her captives led through European capitals, filled the minds of men with unrest: and unrest is the first stage of revolution."
On p. 635, he further says:—
"In this web of islands, the West Indies, began the life of both [North and South] Americas. There Columbus saw land, there Spain began her baneful and brilliant Western Empire; thence Cortez departed for Mexico, De Soto for the Mississippi, Balboa for the Pacific, and Pizarro for Peru. The history of the United States was separated by a beneficient Providence far from this wild and cruel history of the rest of the continent, and like a silent seed, we grew into empire; while empire itself, beginning in the South, was swept by so interminable a hurricane that what of its history we can ascertain is read by the very lightnings that devastated it. The growth of English America may be likened to a series of lyrics sung by separate singers, which, coalescing, at last make a vigorous chorus, and this, attracting many from afar, swells and is prolonged, until presently it assumes the dignity and proportions of epic song."
A writer in the Dublin Nation about the year 1850 spoke of the United States as a wonderful empire which was "emerging," and "amid the silence of the earth daily adding to its power and pride."
In Martyn's "History of the Great Reformation," Vol. iv, p. 238, is an extract from an oration of Edward Everett, on the English exiles who founded this government, in which he says:—