The Predicted Downfall of the Turkish Power

THE PREDICTED DOWNFALL

OF

THE TURKISH POWER

THE

PREPARATION FOR THE RETURN

OF THE TEN TRIBES.

BY

G. S. FABER, B.D.

MASTER OF SHERBURN HOSPITAL AND PREBENDARY OF SALIBURY

LONDON:

THOMAS BOSWORTH, 215 REGENT STREET.

MDCCCLIII

[1853]

From the Preface to the above work:

“I. With our best commentators, I consider the Downfall of the Ottoman Power to be clearly predicted in Scripture. Hence, whenever the destined time shall arrive, all the complications of modern political diplomacy will be found totally unable to prevent the Ruin of that once formidable Empire.

But, though its downfall is thus, I think, absolutely certain, we have no warrant for specifying any precise year. . . .

II. The Downfall of the Ottoman Power, let it occur when it may, is a matter of vast scriptural importance.

It will prepare the way for the Return of the Ten Tribes: and their Return will synchronise with the Return of the Two Tribes.

We have no right, however, to conclude, that the Restoration of Israel will immediately follow the Downfall of Turkey. A way will be prepared by the removal of an obstacle: but it does not therefore follow that Israel will instantaneously avail itself of the preparation. . . .

[Of these things] we may be certain in the abstract, without being certain in the concrete.

III. The Subversion of the Turkish Power will evidently occasion, as all seem to anticipate, a fearful general war. . . .

Thus, plainly, the Downfall of Turkey will be, at once, both the signal and the cause of this terrible war.

The Confederation will be formed by the joint intrigues of what are called Three Unclean Spirits: and, by noting the sources whence they had proceeded, we may form no unreasonable conjecture as to their character. Be they what they may, they are spirits of evil. Whence we may be sure, that the gathering of the Roman Kings infers no good purpose.

A general war may clearly, I think, be set down as the consequence of the Downfall of Turkey: and, in the course of its evolutions, Israel will be restored. As to particulars, we must not venture further than Scripture doth, as it were, take us by the hand. Of this, however, we may be sure, that the DOWNFALL OF TURKEY WILL BE THE HARBINGER OF THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL.”

And from pages 32-36:

“Such a course of regular decay [as that which afflicts the Ottoman Empire] has been rarely witnessed. But if we suppose the Effusion of the Sixth Vial to mark the Commencement of such decay and not its Completion, we shall find ourselves compelled to place that Effusion in the year 1699: an arrangement which is plainly intolerable.

V. The Turkish Empire has not yet fallen: therefore the Sixth Vial cannot as yet have been poured out.

1. There is a matter immediately connected with it which I must take this opportunity of noticing: and I do it all the rather because it has led to a good deal of expositorial inaccuracy.

The three unclean spirits like frogs have very commonly been thought to issue respectively, from the mouths of the Dragon and the Wild-Beast and the False Prophet, as soon as the Sixth Vial begins to flow. Hence it is assumed, as a matter of course, that, upon the Effusion of the Sixth Vial, St. John beheld them issue from the three specified mouths.

But nothing of the kind is said in the prophecy.

St. John beheld them, not in the act of issuing, but after they had issued.

What the Apostle describes himself to have seen is the going forth of the three spirits to gather together the Kings of the whole Roman World to the war of the Great Day of God Almighty.

The passage runs thus.

I saw, from the mouth of the Dragon and from the mouth of the Wild-Beast and from the mouth of the False Prophet, three unclean spirits as frogs.

It is subjoined, which had come forth. This makes the sense of the passage somewhat more explicit: but it is not necessary: and Griesbach rejects the past participle, which more fully brings out the sense. Still the sense remains the same. When the Sixth Vial was poured out, the Apostle beheld, stationed upon the Roman Platform, three unclean spirits as frogs, which had already issued from the three mouths of the Dragon and the Wild-Beast and the False Prophet: and then he saw them immediately go forth with the object of forming a mighty Confederacy of the Papal Kings. The formation of the Confederacy is the immediate consequence of the Completed Exhaustion of the Waters of the mystic Euphrates; or, in other words, it is the immediate result of the Downfall of the Ottoman Power produced by the Effusion of the Sixth Vial.

2. From the matters now before us, we may reasonably anticipate, that the Destruction of Turkey will produce the outbreak of that fearful war, which, commencing in Europe, will, at the Time of the End or at the Close of the 1260 years, pass into Palestine and Egypt and the East.

Then, as Daniel speaks, will there be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation: and then Michael, the Great Prince, will stand up for the children of the Prophet's people; and that ancient people, whether Jews or Israelites, will be delivered out of the hand of their enemies.

3. The agents, who stir up this war, will be the three unclean spirits.

As they do not issue from the mouths of the Dragon and the Wild-Beast and the False Prophet immediately upon the pouring of the Sixth Vial, but were beheld by St. John as having already thus issued, we may reasonably suppose them to be even now in existence, though they have not as yet formally gone forth to the Kings of the Earth to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

This will not occur, until the Sixth Vial shall have been poured out and until the Ottoman Power shall have been overturned.

Meanwhile, supposing them to be even now in existence, and judging of their characters from their parentage, we may easily form no improbable conjecture as to what they are. At any rate, purely as a fact, we may now perceive, ready prepared and harmoniously co-operating for a bad end. Infidelity, and Military Despotism called into action by Anarchy, and Jesuitism of the most arrogant and tyrannical Ultramontane School.

To assure any such co-operation might once have been thought paradoxical: but we have already seen enough of their conjoined practices to feel little difficulty in believing, that they will cordially act together against pure religion, and that they will be the main artificers of the final great Anti-christian Confederation.”