Prophetic Voices Concerning America

“There shall come a time in later ages,
When Ocean shall relax his chains
And a vast continent shall appear,
And a pilot shall find new worlds.“1

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Roman statesman
and philosopher
4 B.C. – 65 A.D.

During the 1980s, people all over America were rediscovering our nation’s Christian heritage. Many new and exciting facts were uncovered which transformed the way in which we viewed our nation’s past and its future.

The faithful lives of our forefathers were investigated; the Christian basis for our Constitution was studied; new approaches to teaching America’s Christian heritage in our schools were developed; political organizations and lobbying groups emerged which promoted a biblical worldview for government.

The work of researchers and political activists in uncovering our nation’s Christian roots has been invaluable. However, there is yet a much deeper lesson to be learned. What was uncovered in the 1980s concerning American history will prove to be just the tip of an iceberg which reaches far into the depths of the ocean.

A vast realm of knowledge remains to be rediscovered which is based on a view of history which is entirely new to our generation.

Another View of History

This view of history, although new to our generation, was succinctly articulated by the historian Charles Coffin in 1881.2 In writing Old Times in the Colonies, Coffin discovered, by tracing the progress of ideas in history, that there is a vaster meaning behind the study of history than just a list of names, places, dates and events. According to Coffin, history should not be viewed as a record of a series of events, but as an outline of the progress of ideas.

“The settlement of our country was the beginning of a new era in human affairs … it was the transplanting of liberty to a continent where everything was new, and where the conditions that surrounded them were wholly unlike those of the Old World.

“You will notice that the beginning of our country is clear and distinct, while the beginnings of the histories of other countries are obscured by tradition or made doubtful by fable. Our early history is definite; the early history of other lands uncertain.

“The history of a nation is like the flowing of a river; there are many rivulets starting wide apart, which unite to swell the ever-deepening stream … The tracing of the relationship of one event to another and showing their effect upon the human race, is the philosophy of history, and by studying the philosophy we are able to arrive at some conclusion as to its meaning ….

“I have spoken of the meaning of history. Surely it has a meaning, what else are we living for? Whichever way we turn in the material world we find things needful for our use and we think of them as God’s forethoughts, and as designed for our welfare. If there is design in the material world, there must be some meaning to history, some ultimate end to be accomplished.“3

This new view of meaning in history – the progress of ideas – can be understood by referring to the sources of our history – to the rivulets that flow into our nation – and by seeing that long ago there were prophetic voices which spoke of the very time at which we have arrived in our present day.

In addition to understanding that our nation was founded on biblical principles and knowing that our laws and government need to be reformed, we must add that the whole world is coming under the rulership of the same God Who spoke through the prophets who foresaw the future role of America in the world.

The Discovery of America

Around the same time that Jesus Christ was born into the world, the first mention of America as a future empire appeared in the literature of the western world. Seneca, a Roman poet and philosopher, penned the Latin verses in the chorus of Medea:

Venient annis secula seris
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum
Laxet et ingens pateat tellus
Tethys que novos detegat orbes
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.

For centuries, these verses pointed to an undiscovered world. According to Sir Francis Bacon, they were a prophecy of the discovery of America by Columbus, and this can be seen to be true if we rely on this translation of the verses:

“There shall come a time in later ages, when ocean shall relax his chains and a vast continent shall appear, and a pilot shall find new worlds, and Thule (northern Europe) shall be no more earth’s bound.”

The verses of an ancient poet proved to be prophetic. These verses were used by Columbus himself as autographs in some of his works. Two copies penned in his own hand appeared in his Prophecies; another entered in his observations of lunar eclipses at Haiti and Jamaica; another still in a letter to Queen Isabella.

By these verses, Columbus sailed to discover a new world. This remarkable, yet obscure piece of verse indicates that long before Columbus came to America there was a foreshadowed glimpse of the New World.

The ancient Greek geographer Strabo, after a long life of travel, sat down during the reign of Augustus Caesar (around the same time as the birth of Christ), at age 84, to write the geography of the world. In this work, Strabo alluded to the possibility of passing straight from Spain to India and explained that in addition to the known inhabited world:

“There may be in the same temperate zone two and indeed more inhabited lands, especially nearest the parallel of Thinae or Athens, prolonged into the Atlantic Ocean.“4

This was the voice of an ancient prophet. The remarkable accuracy of this prediction shows how close the imagination of a poet can approach the prophetic.

As we progress into the Christian era, we will find two Italian poets whose verse was rich with prophecy. One of these is Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), who wrote before Columbus sailed:

“The daylight hastening with winged steps
Perchance to gladden the expectant eyes
Of far-off nations in a world remote.“5

The other was Pulci (1431-1487), who, in his epic romance Morgante Maggiore, revealed an undiscovered world far beyond the pillars of Hercules:

“Know that this theory is false; his bark
The daring mariner shall urge far o’er
The western wave, a smooth and level plain,
Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel.
Man was in ancient days of grosser mould,
And Hercules might blush to learn how far
Beyond the limits he had vainly set
The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way.

“Men shall descry another hemisphere
Since to one common center all things tend;
So earth, by curious mystery divine
Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres.
At our Antipodes are cities, states,
And throngéd empires, ne’er divined of yore.
But see, the sun speeds on his western path
To glad the nations with expected light.“6

The Spanish conquest of America by Columbus was soon followed by the Dutch, French and English, which were the four empires of the western world at this time. Soon after the European discoveries, a group of commentators appeared who saw further into the scheme of history than others.

A Prophetic Group

The voices of Christian authors and poets, men possessed of greater faculties of insight, had much to say about the destiny of our continent long before the United States came into existence. We will look at some of these prophetic voices and then, seeing what has already been fulfilled, we will learn what to expect in the future and gain a better understanding of American destiny.

As the colonies began to prosper and grow, a group of Europeans visiting America began to prophesy a new turn in history. While the colonies were still in their infancy they prophesied growth in power and civilization, heralding a Western empire.

George Herbert, the English poet, saw the Puritan emigration to America, prompted by conscience and the desire for religious liberty, and was inspired to write the famous verses:

“Religion stands on tiptoe in our land,
Ready to pass to the American strand.”

Herbert died in 1632, twelve years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and two years after the larger movement of the Massachusetts Company which began the settlement of Boston.

These verses were almost suppressed by the English government being unsympathetic to the Puritan cause and refusing the proper license for publication. They at last yielded, however, calling Herbert “a divine poet” and expressing concern that “the world would not take him for an inspired prophet.“7

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), another English poet, being perhaps inspired by Herbert’s verse, wrote:

“I am confident that America, though the youngest sister of the four, is now grown marriageable, and daily hopes to get Christ to her husband, by the preaching of the gospel.“8

Another English poet, John Milton (1608-1674), author of Paradise Lost and the heroic Sonnets, wrote a treatise on the emigration of English Christians to America:

“What numbers of faithful and free-born Englishmen and good Christians have been constrained to forsake their dear dearest home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean and the savage deserts of America could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops!

“O, if we could but see the shape of our dear mother England, as poets are wont to give a personal form to what they please, how would she appear, think ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears abundantly flowing from her eyes, to behold so many of her children exposed at once and thrust from things of dearest necessity, because their conscience could not assent to things which the bishops thought indifferent?

“Let the astrologer be dismayed at the portentous blaze of comets and impressions in the air, as foretelling troubles and changes to states; I shall believe there cannot be a more ill-boding sign to a nation (God turn the omen from us!) than when the inhabitants, to avoid insufferable grievances at home, are enforced by heaps to forsake their native country.“9

Begun in the simplicity of sacrifice and courage, America grew in promise of grandeur and the hope of a better future. A sense of divine destiny was firmly implanted in the foundation of the new colonies.

Sir Thomas Browne, 1682

A contemporary of Milton, Sir Thomas Browne wrote a tract entitled “A Prophecy concerning the Future State of Several Nations,” in which he predicts that “America will be the seat of the fifth empire.“10 This tract was published in 1684 and is based on verses supposedly sent to him by a friend entitled “The Prophecy.”

“When New England shall trouble new Spain,
When Jamaica shall be lady of the isles and the main;
When Spain shall be in America hid,
And Mexico shall prove a Madrid;
When Africa shall no more sell out their blacks
To make slaves and drudges to the American tracts;

“When America shall cease to send out its treasure,
But employ it at home in American pleasure;
When the New World shall the Old invade,
Nor count them their lords but their fellows in trade;

“Then think strange things have come to light
Whereof but few have had a foresight.“11

All of these things have come to pass since Browne penned these verses. In fact, they only seem remarkable when the early date is considered. Although there is little need of explanation today, Browne seems to have to accepted these words as genuine prophecy and provided a commentary explaining them at length shortly before his death.

Bishop Berkeley, 1726

George Berkeley, an Irish Bishop and philosopher, was planning to found a college for the colonial churches. Before sailing to America, the great future of our nation was revealed to him and he wrote his only extant poem: “Verse on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America.”

“The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better time.
Producing subjects worthy fame.

“Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time’s Noblest offspring is the last.“12

The meaning behind these verses seems to be the westward progress of the seat of civilization. According to Berkeley and many other observers of this time period, the arts, sciences and the gospel had always travelled westward. The next move, they thought, would be over the Atlantic to America.

Samuel Sewall, 1727

Like Berkeley, Samuel Sewall saw the sun of the empire travelling westward. A contemporary of Berkeley, Sewall was born in England and died in New England. Samuel Sewall saw in America the New Heaven and the New Earth. One of the accomplishments of this new civilization was to be the end of slavery. Sewall’s tract, “The Selling of Joseph,” earned him the title of the first American abolitionist.

Sewall was among the first to boldly proclaim America to be the New Jerusalem:

“Of all the parts of the world, which do from this Charter, entitle themselves to the Government of Christ, America’s plea, in my opinion is the strongest.“13

Marquis D’Argenson, 1745

A French nobleman was among the first to predict the liberation of America from the British. Despite strange eccentricities, Marquis D’Argen-son was an insightful writer who began to sympathize with the American cause.

“Another great event to arrive upon the round earth is this. The English have in Northern America domains great, strong, rich, well regulated. There are in New England a parliament, governors, troops, white inhabitants in abundance, riches, and mariners … I say that some bright morning these dominations can separate from England, rise and erect themselves into an independent republic.“14

A full thirty years before the first shots fired in the War for Independence, D’Argenson preceded Turgot and John Adams in prophesying the emergence of America as a free nation.

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, 1750

One of the most illustrious names of pre-revolutionary France, Turgot mastered studies in law, literature, science, humanities, and government. Unlike his contemporary Voltaire, he exhibited a spirit of toleration. Had Turgot’s views held sway in France, the blood bath that was the French Revolution might have been averted.

In 1750, when only 23 years old in the seminary at Sorbornne, Turgot delivered a discourse on the Progress of the Human Mind in which he described the commercial triumphs of the ancient Phoenicians, covering the coasts of Greece and Asia with their colonies. He then compared the colony of Carthage, which later became an empire, to America.

“Colonies are like fruits, which hold the tree only until their maturity: when sufficient for themselves, they did that which Carthage afterwards did, – that which some day America will do.“15

So Turgot, while studying theology at age 23, had the insight to realize that America was destined for the revolution which formed the United States. In the same prophetic spirit, he wrote in a letter to his friend, the English philosopher Josiah Tucker, dated September 17, 1770:

“As a citizen of the world, I see with joy the approach of an event which, more than all the books of philosophers, will dissipate the phantom of commercial jealousy, I mean the separation of your colonies from the mother country, WHICH WILL BE FOLLOWED BY THAT OF ALL AMERICA FROM EUROPE.”

In the spring of 1776, Turgot then predicted the outcome of the War for Independence: “The present war will probably end in the absolute independence of the colonies, and that event will certainly be the epoch of the greatest revolution in the commerce of politics not of England only, but of all Europe.“16

John Adams, 1755

Next in the line of prophets is John Adams, who needs no introduction to American readers. Together with John Hancock and his brother Samuel Adams, he is called an architect of the American Revolution.

In 1755, while teaching school in Worcester at age 20, Adams wrote a letter to one of his young friends which shows remarkable insight. After giving examples of the fall of great empires, such as Carthage and Rome, he made the following prediction:

“England began to increase in power and magnificence, and is now the greatest nation of the globe. Soon after the Reformation, a few people came over to this New World for conscience’ sake. Perhaps this this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire to America. It looks likely to me; for if we can remove the turbulent Gallics (the French), our people … will, in another century, become more than England itself.“17

Another prophetic passage appeared in 1768:

“I always consider the settlement of America with reverence, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.“18

On the 3rd of July, 1776, John Adams wrote in a letter to his wife Abigail:

“Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men …. I am surprised at the suddenness as well as greatness of this revolution. Britain has been filled with folly, and America with wisdom. At least this is my judgment. Time must determine. It is the will of heaven that the two countries should be severed forever …. The day is past.

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be celebrated with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.

“You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom, I can see the ravishing light and glory; and that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction, even though we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not.“19

In the above lines, Adams predicts the eventual victory of the United States over England after a long struggle, and the celebration of America’s Independence Day through succeeding generations in accurate detail. Another prophetic pronouncement of startling accuracy is the prediction of the extension of the English language:

“English is destined to be the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world than Latin in the last or French is in the present age … I have undertaken to prophesy that English will be the most respectable language in the world, and the most universally read and spoken in the next century, if not before the close of this.“20

The unfolding grandeur of the republic was revealed to the mind of Adams as he was awed by the future prospects for our nation:

“A prospect into futurity in America is like contemplating the heavens through the telescopes of Herschel. Objects stupendous in their magnitudes and motions strike us from all quarters and fill us with amazement.“21

In a letter to Thomas Jefferson dated November 15, 1813, Adams wrote:

“Many hundred years must roll away before we shall be corrupted. Our pure, virtuous, public-spirited, federative republic will last forever, govern the globe, and introduce the perfection of man.“22

Dr. Richard Price, 1776

A dissenting clergyman from England during the War for American Independence, Dr. Price was also a mathematician, political writer and authority on financial matters. As a friend of the American cause and solid ally at a critical period, Price prophesied the dawn of a new era.

“With heartfelt satisfaction I see the revolution in favor of universal liberty which has taken place in America, – a revolution which opens a new prospect in human affairs, and begins a new era in the history of mankind … Perhaps I do not go to far when I say that, next to the introduction of Christianity among mankind, the American revolution may prove the most important step in the progressive course of human improvement …”

Announcing the grandeur of this new order, he states, “that it may produce a general diffusion of the principles of humanity,” and may lead all mankind to see that “all legitimate government consists in the dominion of equal laws, made with common consent.”

Referring to the hope of universal peace beginning in the United States, he states, that “it is not impossible but that by some such means universal peace may some time or other be produced, and all war be excluded from the world … Why may we not hope to see this begun in America?“23

Governor Pownall, 1780

Another friend of the United States in England was Thomas Pownall, an English statesman and author. He traveled to America in 1753 and successively became the governor of Massachusetts, New Jersey and South Carolina. Pownall, after returning to England, had insight into the purposes for American Independence for the whole world.

“The independence of America is as fixed as fate. She is the mistress of her own future, knows that she is so, and will actuate that power which she feels she hath, so as to establish her own system and to change the system of Europe.“24

Robert Burns, 1788

The famous English poet had some prophetic lines specifically for the United States. Burns was a world renowned poet, who began as a poor plough boy struggling in a cottage in his youth. Similarly, God had favored America, having raised up a great nation up to a place of prominence in the world which began as a small band of Pilgrims struggling to survive in the wilderness.

Burns’ poem, “Ode on the American War,” pictured the sublime brotherhood of man following on the heels of American Liberty:

“No Spartan tube, no attic shell,
No lyre Eolian, I awake;
‘Tis Liberty’s bold note I swell;
Thy harp, Columbia, let me take.”

“Then let us pray, that come it may,
And come it will, for a’ that,
That man to man, the whole world o’er,
Shall brothers be and a’ that.”

Henri Grégoire, 1808

Grégoire was a French curate, Deputy and Constitutional Bishop. Prophesying the abolition of slavery, a new world order, the digging of the Panama Canal, and the ascendency of America in changing the face of the commercial world, Grégoire showed remarkable insight.

Grégoire was for the abolition movement in France what William Wilberforce was for England. In an open letter to those still enslaved in the New World, he said:

“A day will come when deputies of color will traverse the ocean to come and sit in the national diet to swear with us to live and to die under our laws. A day will come when the sun will not shine among you except upon freemen, – when the rays of the light-spreading orb will no longer fall upon irons and slaves …. It is according to the irresistible march of events and the progress of intelligence, that all people dispossessed of the domain of liberty will at last recover this indefeasible property.“25

Later, Grégoire predicted that when the digging of the Panama Canal was completed (and event almost 100 years in he future), that America would become the most eminent economic power in the world:

“When an energetic and powerful nation, to which everything presages high destinies, stretching its arms upon the two oceans, Atlantic and Pacific, shall direct its vessels from one to the other by an abridged route, – it may be in cutting the isthmus of Panama; it may be in forming a canal communicating, as it has been proposed, by the river of St. John and the lake of Nicaragua, – it will change the face of the commercial world and the face of empires.

“Who knows if America will not then avenge the outrages she has received, and if our old Europe, placed in the rank of a subaltern power, will not become a colony of the New World?“26

Thomas Jefferson, 1824

Jefferson and Adams, respectively America’s third and second presidents, both died on July 4, 1824. Their deaths, both on the date of America’s 48th anniversary, seem too unlikely to be coincidental. Perhaps this is yet another prophetic pronouncement speaking of America’s destiny. Could this be yet another confirmation that a new world order had begun 48 years before?

Jefferson, shortly before his death, spoke of the cement of the Union which was destined to be a model for bringing about a new world order.

“The cement of this Union is in the heart-blood of every American. I do not believe there is on earth a government established on so immovable a basis. Let them in any State, even in Massachusetts itself, raise the standard of separation, and its citizens will rise in mass and do justice to themselves on their own incendiaries.“27

There is yet another prophecy which shows Jefferson’s insight into the force of Union in our nation and foreshadows the bitterly divisive issue of slavery and the resulting Civil War. In a letter to Judge Edward Livingston, on March 25th, 1825, he wrote that the United States Constitution “is a compact of many independent powers, every single one of which claims an equal right to understand it and to require its observance.”

Watching with anxiety the fortunes of the Union, Jefferson then prophesied: “However strong the cord of compact may be, there is a point of tension at which it will break.“28

Alexis De Tocqueville, 1835

The great French social scientist, author of Democracy in America, had many things to say about American Destiny. Perhaps the most poignant to us at this point, however, is his treatment of the subject of slavery. Like Jefferson, De Tocqueville saw the menace of the Union succumbing to the States:

“The most fearful of all the evils which menace the future of the United States springs from the presence of blacks on their soil. When we seek the cause of present embarrassment and of future dangers to the United States, we arrive almost always at this first fact, from whatever point we depart.“29

Then the famous sociologist predicted the eventual freedom of blacks; yet they would be oppressed by white judges; shut out from the jury; segregated in schools, theaters, churches and even at the site of the grave. Sadly, De Tocqueville’s prophetic testimony rings all too true. No American can fail to be both grieved and challenged by the problems that face African-Americans even to this day.

Yet it was the opinion of De Tocqueville and many others that no permanent inequality could exist in America. In the words of a twentieth century prophet, Martin Luther King: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

So America is moving slowly, progressively toward a state of affairs in which all men, women, and children (including the unborn) will be protected by that great statement of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration in Independence: “We hold these truths to be self evident … that all men are created equal.”

God still has a destiny for America!

In our survey of prophetic voices concerning America, we have heard the ancient prophecies that foretold the discovery of another world. The verses penned by poets centuries before may have been in the mind of Columbus when he set out for the New World. Some today believe that Columbus died thinking he had sailed westward to the Orient, but more likely, he realized that he had truly discovered a new land.

The continent was hardly known when poets such as Herbert and Milton predicted the growth of a Western Empire. Turgot and Adams foretold of the Independence of America and the establishment of the United States all over North America.

Then came the prophecies by French, English and American sages that America would become a world power in later ages. Grégoire, Jefferson and De Tocqueville later prophesied that the issue of slavery would become divisive, yet no inequality could last forever in a nation with a destiny more powerful than war.

What more shall we say then? These men were diligent in their study of the things of God; they were well versed in biblical principles; and they had Christian character. Furthermore, their prophecies were highly accurate. Today we can still look to their words in order to understand the destiny of America.

It is surprising, therefore, that many today question the fact that these men were Christians. I would venture guess that if the aforementioned could gaze down the corridors of time and see the state of the American Church at present, that they would wonder if many of the Christians of today are genuine!

Even though the state of affairs in America today may look bleak in some respects, a gleaming ray of hope appears – God has a destiny for America! He always honors His covenants with men and our nation is based solidly on a covenant with an Almighty God. His sovereign hand is still guiding us through history.

Our nation is leading the human race in its march toward a toward a state of society that is inexpressibly grand and glorious. The future of the United States holds not a slow demise but a glorious destiny. At the end of a long list of prophecies, there appears another list yet to be fulfilled.

Resources of all kinds will multiply and increase beyond all experience; the arts will embellish the land with immortal beauty; the name of Liberty will become exalted until every person in the world will yield to its irresistible attraction; and the universal peace that is found in knowing God will become more powerful than the armed forces of any nation for the conquest of the world.

Remaining to be seen is the spread of Liberty throughout the world until the whole earth comes into a new order and the rule of Jesus Christ is supreme.