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rienced by the followers of Christ, in Popish countries, since the aforementioned peace of Augsburg. And read the prophecies of the trials, which the Church is to experience under the reign of Infidelity, just before the battle of the great day, whether the witnesses be then to be slain, or not. These things do not appear to accord with the representation given of the witnesses, after their resurrection, and their ascension to heaven.

4. In the same hour with the ascension of the witnesses to heaven, there was a great earthquake, in which a tenth part of the city fell. There was no event within a prophetical hour of the peace of Augsburg in 1555, which can answer to this prediction. No event is by the aforementioned author supposed to have answered to it, till the revolution in France, in 1789. But this was 234 years after the supposed resurrection of the witnesses. And to say that two disconnected and different events, 234 years apart, may yet be said to take place in the same hour, would be extraordinary indeed. It would be unprecedented in the Bible, and in all com.

mon conversation.

5. The agent, by whom the witnesses are said to be slain, was not in existence, till centuries after those events in Germany. The first apocalyptic Beast rose (as did the same Beast in Dan. vii, 2, symbolizing the heathen Roman Empire) from the sea.* The second apocalyptic Beast (answering to the little horn of the Roman Beast in Daniel, and symbolizing the Romish hierarchy) rose from the earth. The third apocalyptic Beast (numerically the eighth, but specifically the sixth head of the old Roman Beast, healed of his deadly wound, and at the same time symbolized by a new Beast, in Rev. xvii) rose from the bottomless pit. This is expressly said to be the agent, that slays the witnesses. Twice in the description of this Beast, in Rev. xvii, he is said to ascend out of the bottomless pit. And it is said of the witnesses, And when they shall have finished their testimony, (or when their 1260 years shali

*Rev. xiii, 1.

Verse 11.

be closing,) the Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit, shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. The rise of this Beast is by far too recent, to have slain the witnesses in Germany in 1547. There can be no plausible pretence, that Charles V. was this Beast, that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit. And it appears most evident, that this last head of the Roman Beast did not rise in Charlemagne, as has been ascertained.

Finally. The Papal Beast had been making war upon the witnesses from the beginning of the 1260 years. No new attacks then, instituted in his dying struggles, could amount to a new war against them. But the text, "And when they shall have finished their testimony, the Beast that ascended out of the bottomless pit, shall make war against them, and shall overcome them and kill them," seems clearly to indicate, that a new war, by a new Power, shall then commence against the witnesses;-a war subsequent to that, which was prosecuted against them by any Papal power.

For these reasons I am constrained to dissent from the aforementioned scheme, relative to the slaying of the witnesses; and to admit the sentiment, that the event is still future. The remarks above stated go equally to refute all the schemes of authors, who have placed the slaying of the witnesses in past centuries.*

The dead bodies of the witnesses are to lie three days and an half in the street (according to Mede and Pool,

*Since the publishing of the first edition of this dissertation, I have for the first time learned the sentiment of the celebrated Mr. Scott, upon the above point.

I am strengthened in my opinion, in finding that his fully accords with it. He says, "Many private interpretations (for so they appear to me) have been given of this passage, (Rev. xi, 7-12) as if it related to the martyrdom of individuals, or partial persecutions, in past times: And some imagine, that it denotes only the constant persecutions of true Christians through the whole period of 1260 years. I cannot, however, but think, that it relates to events yet future; and that it will be fulfilled about the time of the sounding of the seventh trumpet!

In the following page he further informs, that, though the above was written some time since; and he has, before the pub

in "the territories, and jurisdiction") of the great city, which spiritually, or mystically, is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Our Lord

was crucified under the sixth head of the Roman Beast.

A governor of Imperial Rome, at the instigation of the Jews, condemned and crucified him. And under the same head our Lord was crucified, in his members, in ten bloody persecutions, before that head received its deadly wound in the year 320. Must it not then be in the city, or under the dominion, of this same head, healed of its deadly wound, in order to be in the city where our Lord was crucified, that the witnesses are to lie slain and unburied? It is to be in a city mystically called Sodom and Egypt. Sodom and Egypt were Pagan. How much better the Atheism of Antichrist accords with their character, than did the sanctimoni ous professions of Papal Rome? Our Lord was not literally crucified under Rome Papal; but he was under Rome Pagan. And under the latter, revived in the last days, it is natural to look for the slaying of his witnesses.

What is to be particularly understood by the witnesses being slain, and lying unburied, the event will determine. The predictions of the event may lead us to expect, that the rights of the Church, and of con

lication of his last edition, had time to re-consider the subject, and to compare it with the writings of others, and with the events of Providence; "he still avows his full conviction, that the transactions (the slaughter and resurrection of the witnesses) have not hitherto taken place." He gives his belief, that till the testimony against idolatry and Popery, in the ten kingdoms, is generally suppressed, the witnesses are not slain. That "the triumphs of the persecutors, in Germany, Bohemia, Spain, or Italy, do not amount to any thing, which can be called the slaying of the witnesses; so long as a public testimonyfor the true Gospel, is born in any other parts of the western empire." Again. "Nor is the term (the 1260 years) yet expired. The witnesses are not indeed, at present, exposed to such terrible sufferings, as in former times But these scenes will probably be re-acted, before long. And they have abundant cause to prophecy in sackcloth, on account of the state of religion, even in the Protestant churches." These remarks of Mr. Scott are indeed of weight.

science, will under some pretence be invaded. And the pretence probably will be, as it was in ancient times, against Christ, and against his persecuted followers; a pretence of their being bad and dangerous members of civil society, detrimental to national interests; speak. ing against Cesar; moving seditions; weakening the hands of the men of war; and, We have a law; and by our law he ought to die.*

Perhaps the process of the events of that period is hinted in Rev. xiv. Christ there appears on mount Zion; or comes powerfully into his Church, in the reformation under Luther. The Church enjoys a sealing time, as she did after the revolution under Constantine, Rev. vii, 1-8. Vast numbers, as at that period, are sealed to the day of redemption. A description of the enlargement of the Protestant churches, and of their purity from the defilements of the Papal harlot, follows. In process of time a missionary spirit is excited, and pervades the Church; the Angel, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to heathen lands, begins his flight. This, he gives us to understand, is in the same hour with the judgment of God on the Papal see.† A sec

That great man, the late President Witherspoon, published a very able sermon entitled, "The Charge of Sedition and Faction against good Men, especially faithful Ministers, considered and accounted for." The preacher concludes one part of his subject by saying, "That worldly men have been always disposed first to oppress the children of God, and then to complain of injury from them; that by slander they might vindicate their oppression. Their slander too hath still run in the same strain; troublers of Israel, deceivers of the people, enemies to Cesar, and turners of the world upside down, have been the opprobrious titles generally give to the most upright and most faithful men, in every age and country."

In accounting for this fact, he says, "True religion does indeed, give trouble and uneasiness to wicked men, while they continue such; and it cannot be supposed, but they will deeply resent it."

See Witherspoon's Works, vol. ii, p. 415, Woodward's edition.

As this flight of the missionary Angel, is a very interesting event; I shall here adduce sone of the other prophecies, which foretell the same thing. So signal an event we might expect to find in other prophecies. And it is there found.

ond Angel announces, Babylon is fallen, is fallen. The signs of the times become notorious. The fall of Papal Babylon, by the rise of Antichrist, is ascertained.

Christ, when predicting to his disciples his coming, Matt.xxiv, Mark xiii, Luke xxi, informs, that "this Gospel of the kingdom must first be preached to all nations, for a witness unto them; and then shall the end come." It is, by and by in this section, shown, that while this coming of Christ, with which this passage stands connected, had a primary reference to the destruction of Jerusalem, it had a more signal reference to the battle of that great day, immediately preceding the Millennium. Though the above prediction had a primary fulfilment in the propagation of the Gospel by the apostles through the Roman world, before the destruction of the Jews; yet it is to have a more extensive fulfilment just before the ruins of Antichrist; or in the flight of the missionary Angel, above noted.

We might expect that the prophet Isaiah would give some intimation of this great event. And repeatedly does he give sublime hints of it.

In Isa. xl, the chapter begins with a prediction of the final restoration of the Jews; that their long dispersion is accomplished; and they have received of the Lord's hand double for all their sins. An account then follows of the same event with that of the missionary Angel, Verse 3. "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a high way for our God. Every valley shall be exalted; and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight; and the rough places plain; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed; and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

This passage had a primary and typical fulfilment in the preaching of John the Baptist, in the wilderness of Judea, to introduce the advent of the Messiah. He accordingly says, John i, 23, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord; as said the prophet Isaias." But we are no more taught in this, that the passage had then its ultimate fulfilment, than we are taught, that the predictions concerning the kingdoms of Christ on earth had their final accomplishment in the primitive Christian Church; or the introduction of the Gospel dispensation. They had only a primary, ncoative fulfilment in those days.

The above prediction in Isaiah is one of those, which are to Mr. Faber inreceive a primary, and an ultimate fulfilment. forms of such; which, "instead of being incapable of a double fulfilment, we perpetually find such evidently constructed with the express design of receiving a double accomplishment. They are first fulfilled in an inchoate manner; and afterward

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