The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

VI. Eccentric Lorenzo Dow Adds His Curious Bit

A unique figure in the class of crude but zealous itinerant preachers in the Great Revival, and an almost legendary caricature of that class, was LORENZO Dow ⁵⁷ -Lorenzo, as he styled himself, or “the eccentric Cosmopolite.” Traveling from New England to the southwestern frontier wilderness and even to Ireland and England, he preached to enormous crowds. Also he sold or advertised his books-journals and expanded sermons—and in later years dispensed his patented “Lorenzo Dow’s Family Medicine.” But he was immensely serious about the conversion of sinners. PFF4 202.1

1. STANDARD INTERPRETATION OF BASIC OUTLINES

Not an expositor of prophecy as such, he preached on it as a matter of course, and sometimes referred to earlier writers on whom he drew, such as Fleming, but particularly Wesley and Bengel. ⁵⁸ He gave the standard historical interpretations of Daniel’s four empires, the ten kingdoms, the beast from the sea, the dragon, the woman of Revelation 12 and 18. ⁵⁹ PFF4 202.2

2. ODD IDEAS ON LESSER FEATURES

In addition, Dow put forth several teachings typical of this period, such as atheism as the Antichrist and Napoleon as the two-horned beast. London he saw as Babylon, in control while the Beast “is not,” and the established Protestant churches as the daughters of the scarlet woman. ⁶⁰ Regarding himself as the champion of American freedom and of separation of church and state against the Old World tyranny of kings and priests, he thundered warnings of foreign intrigues and Jesuit spies. His “Prophecy Concerning America” applies Isaiah 18 to the New World. He sees the beginnings of the process by which God- PFF4 202.3

“will cause the standard and principles of liberty to be set up, as they were first set up in this country, and afterwards in France and South America; and he will cause these principles to be diffused among all the nations of Europe, destroying all their established order and system of oppression ... (as they are beginning to do in England at this time, and as they will shortly do in Germany, Italy, Spain and other countries,) which will cause them to gnaw their tongues for pain within a few years, under the operation of the fifth vial now pouring out.” ⁶¹ PFF4 203.1

3. STONE BEGINNING TO SMITE IMAGE

Dow denounces the [Un]Holy Alliance and their designs on America. PFF4 203.2

“The ten kingdoms of Europe will be in the full exercise of their power and authority, when the stone destined to destroy them is cut out without hands, and these kingdoms will ‘agree, and give their power and strength unto the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled;’ or, in other words, till the kingdom of Christ is set up on the earth. Under the next vial, the three evil spirits go forth to unite and strengthen the cause of kings and priests.” ⁶² These three evil spirits he sees as Magog (Russia), popish countries, and England. ⁶³ He expects America to be God’s instrument to bring in, or at least prepare for, the millennium on earth through spreading the principles of freedom and true religion, which he implies will be the stone kingdom now beginning to smite the image (divine right of priests and kings), preparatory to the mountain kingdom of God to come. ⁶⁴ In the later period Dow seems to be more the prophet of American freedom than the prophet of righteousness, and the forerunner of the wave of “no popery” agitation in the United States that expressed itself in so many political struggles and even acts of violence in later decades. ⁶⁵ His was an erratic voice on the far-flung fringes, but was widely heard withal. PFF4 203.3