Political Prophets

As we have seen, the Bishop of Carlisle prophesies that if Bolingbroke is permitted to usurp the throne, England will suffer the tragedy of civil war. This prophecy is fulfilled in English history in the War of the Roses and in Shakespeare's telling of it in the three parts of Henry VI.

There is a similar prophetic tradition in American history and, in particular, in relation to the sin of slavery. At the Constitutional Convention, George Mason prophesied that if the US persevered in the sin of slavery, it would somehow in the course of time come to experience a "national calamity", as an expression of divine wrath:


“Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country. As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects providence punishes national sins, by national calamities” (George Mason, Constitutional Convention, Madison’s Notes, August 22,1787)

Thomas Jefferson likewise prophesied that God's wrath would fall upon the Americans for the sin of slavery:

“And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my county when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.” (Thomas Jefferson, Query XVIII, Notes on the State of Virginia)

In both prophecies, these men recognize the evil character of slavery and recognize that this sin will bring God's wrath upon its practitioners, because they are violating the rights of other human beings, rights that "are of the gift of God."

It is hard not to consider the American civil war, in which 600,000 Americans died, as the fulfillment of these prophecies. At any rate, Abraham Lincoln understood the calamity of the civil war as an expression of God's just punishment upon the United States for persevering in such a horrible sin:

“The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!’ If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and south, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God will that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.” (Lincoln, Second Inaugural, 1865)

Carlisle prophesies (in Shakespeare at least) that fatal consequences will follow upon the deposing of a rightful king. Mason and Jefferson prophesy that fatal consequences will follow upon the national sin of slavery. In both cases the prophecies come to pass and, in the case of the American civil war, Lincoln recognizes the coming of God's judgment . Perhaps in the histories of nations as well as in the lives of individuals, predictable consequences follow upon actions that are morally right or wrong.