The Eleventh Chapter: The Killing of the Witnesses

“AND WHEN THEY SHALL HAVE FINISHED THEIR TESTIMONY, THE BEAST THAT ASCENDETH OUT OF THE BOTTOMLESS PIT, SHALL MAKE WAR AGAINST THEM, AND SHALL OVERCOME THEM, AND KILL THEM: AND THEIR DEAD BODIES SHALL LIE IN THE STREET

REV. XI. 7 — THE TIME OF KILLING THE WITNESSES. 649

OF THE GREAT CITY, WHICH SPIRITUALLY IS CALLED SODOM
AND EGYPT, WHERE ALSO OUR LORD WAS CRUCIFIED. AND
THEY OF THE PEOPLE, AND KINDRDES, AND TONGUES, AND
NATIONS, SHALL SEE THEIR DEAD BODIES THREE DAYS AND AN
HALF, AND SHALL NOT SUFFER THEIR DEAD BODIES TO BE PUT
IN GRAVES. AND THEY THAT DWELL UPON THE EARTH SHALL
REJOICE OVER THEM, AND MAKE MERRY, AND SHALL SEND
GIFTS ONE TO ANOTHER; BECAUSE THESE TWO PROPHETS TOR
MENTED THEM THAT DWELT ON THE EARTH.” V. 7 — 10.

i. — The time of the witnesses’ killing not yet come.

The angel’s scope here being to shew, according to his oath in Daniel, how Antichrist should “accomplish to scatter the power of the holy people,” towards the end of his three and a half times’ reign; what is here said of the beast’s war and victory, refers not to the conquests and slaughters which Antichrist, during his reign, should make of the holy people or witnesses, (spoken of in c. xiii.) but specifies an eminent prevailing over them, on the eve of finishing their sackcloth-prophesying. We have seen their power to erect a temple to themselves, whence to pour forth four vials upon their enemies: and the better to fence themselves against the beast, thus possessed of the greatest part of Europe, (or the holy city,) they environed the temple with a court, or mighty party of carnal Protestant fellow-separatists from the beast. The treading down this court by the Gentiles, who are again to subdue it to themselves, is a part of this final scattering of the saints’ power, or rather a preparation thereunto; for before the beast can get at the witnesses to kill them, the court must be more fully won, (which is now a doing,) and then both themselves and their inner temple will be exposed to the irruptions of these Gentiles, and easily subdued by them, these out-works being taken and recovered. The great question here, is about the time of this killing, whether it be past or to come. Mr. Brightman makes the whole fulfilled in the overthrow of the Protestants in Germany by Charles the Fifth, (A.D. 1547,) and that condemning of the scriptures, (these two witnesses, or the Old and New Testaments,) by the council of Trent, about three centuries ago: but Graserus, Hoe, Mede, Wood, &c. think it yet to come; and if the series of interpretation I have given hold good, it must needs be so; and both what precedes and what follows this great event, confirms the same; nothing of what must follow being yet fulfilled, though several centuries have past since Mr. Brightman’s date. 1st, This is to fall out at the close of their mournful state of prophesying, after which they shall cast off their sackcloth, as after Joshua’s captivity-garments were taken from him, he had a mitre set on his head; so these on their rising again arc to be cloathcd in fine linen: but the church is still bewailing her condition under Antichrist, and those

650 THE TIME OF KILLING THE WITNESSES [REV. XI. 7 — 10.

other enemies even in the Reformed churches who tire triumphing in silk and liberty. 2dly, This “killing” is towards the close of Antichrist’s reign in respect of his “power to do” for this is that last scattering of Daniel, wherewith he is to accomplish his times: but his kingdom yet stands, and it is three hundred years since that German havoc, and we are still under the fifth vial; for when Rome itself, the seat and throne of the beast, shall come to be ruined, then his kingdom shall be full of darkness, and his glory so put out, that his reign will be accounted at an end. 3dly, Antichrist is still but in his first march towards this war, to win and recover the court of the temple, that he may come at the witnesses to kill them: and though he hath trodden down Germany, yet he is but setting up and advancing his engines of assault and battery on other such places where God hath most of his powerful witnesses in these last times, in whose siege he is set down by his agents and the receivers of “the number of his name,” who are to be his last champions. 4thly, Four of the seven vials are to be poured out by the witnesses before their killing, for in the days of their prophecy, they smite the earth with plagues, (which is the first vial,) and turn the sea and rivers into blood, (which is the second and third vials,) and then devour men with fire, (which is the fourth vial:) after all which exploits comes their killing. But that slaughter three hundred years ago was but in the beginning of the second vial, and we see not yet the full effect of the fourth, which is still pouring out its contents. 5thly, After the witnesses’ rising, the second woe of the sixth trumpet is to pass away, (v. 14,) its times being expired, or the foundation of its ruin laid; and this is the great power and tyranny of the Turk, whose kingdom yet stands in its vigour and flourish, no fundamental blow of weakening being given it; much less, Gthly, Is the seventh trumpet begun to be blown, which yet is to come quickly after the sixth; for although Jesus Christ, in the northern kingdoms, hath been assisted in that his harvest of his elect since the Reformation, by supreme and princely authority, (and therefore that peaceable harvest was reaped by a crowned angel,) yet 1, The kingdoms of the world becoming Christ’s for him to reign for ever, (and that, at the beginning of the seventh trumpet,) will be different from what he hath yet had, being the fifth monarchy, to begin when the beast’s days end, (Dan. vii. 14,) and to be carried on, not so much by deputies and delagated power, as under the immediate rule and government of Christ himself, v. 17; And, 2, When the seventh trumpet shall begin to sound, “then shall the mystery be fulfilled spoken of by the prophets,” (c. x. 7, with Acts iii. 21,) even the new Jerusalem and kingdom of the saints, and first resurrection, (v. 15 — 17, with c. xx. 1, &c.) but since what Mr. Brightman calls the “resurrection of the witnesses,” none of these things are begun, or as yet to begin. 3, The seventh trumpet and last vial

REV. XI. 7 — 10.] NOT YET COME. 651

fall out together, or rather the last vial begins the seventh trumpet, (as v. 19, with c. xvi. 18, shews;) there being the same thunderings, hail, &c. in both: now we are yet but under the fourth vial, and so very far oft’ from the last.

I will however add this, which may reconcile also Mr. Brightman’s opinion, and haply serve, in the closure of all, to hint further about the expiring of limes at the last vial’s fulfilling. In the measurement of the temple, the angel might aim both at that first laying the foundation of true churches, and also at this second Reformation now in hand, as degrees of the same work, though the latter is specially intended, (the other yet being a far greater work;) so might he take in two killings of these witnesses, following and accompanying both these measurings, the one near the foundation, and the other near the finishing; and so ordered, that the first should be a foregoing resemblance of the succeeding. Many prophecies have had several gradual accomplishments; the former becoming types of the latter mainly intended: and there are many passages spoken of as fulfilled in the New Testament, which yet had a gradual accomplishment in the times after the Babylonish captivity: thus Isa. i. 9, is applied in Rom. ix. 27, to gospel-times, the Holy Ghost aiming at both. And even in the Old Testament the same prophecy is sometimes fulfilled over and over: Thus as there were two eminent leadings into captivity, the one of Jeconiah, the other of Zedekiah; so there is a double reckoning of the seventy years, and of the building again of the temple; (and this instance I pitch on as a type of this measuring of the temple;) for Ezek. i. 2, 3, begins the captivity from the carrying away of Jeconiah, in the fifth year of Nebuchadnezzar; and Jer. xxix. 10, comforts the captives with the promise of being visited after seventy years, when Cyrus gave leave to lay the foundation of the temple: and yet after this, when the temple was to be again measured and completed, another seventy years is said to be ended, (commencing from the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar;) as in Zech, i. 12, 16. And why may not the Holy Ghost have an eye here also to a double work, and a double accomplishment of the beast’s reign, and of the church’s coming out of Babylon, and of the killing of the witnesses, and of the measuring of the temple; though this last be mainly intended? Again, In Dan. xii. 4, 11, (referring to the New Testament, “when knowledge should be increased,” &c.) the angel shews, that from the time of removing the Jews’ daily sacrifices, and of setting up the desolating abomination, were to be twelve hundred and ninety days, i. c. years. Now there hath been a double removal of that sacrifice, and also a double setting up of “the abomination of desolation,” or Heathenish idolatry: for from the sacking of Jerusalem by Vespasian and his son Titus, to about A.D. 1360, was just so many years; and then began that first great increase of knowledge and

652 ALLUSION TO CHRIST’S PASSION. [REV. XI. 7 — 10.

discovery of Antichrist, under Wickliflfe, Thaulerus, &c. But there was another, “ceasing of the daily sacrifice (of the Christian religion,) and setting up of the abomination” of Heathenism by Julian, the apostate emperor, about A.D. 363: indeed he set up the Jewish sacrifice again, that had ceased, but has never since been restored; God’s special hand binding all the Jews from setting up their daily sacifices at Jerusalem again; for the Turk suffers them not to live there, and tolerates all exercises of all religions except that of the sacrifices: and Christians themselves possess the sepulchre of the Lord. Now Mr. Brightman reckons the beginning of Antichrist’s reign, and of the witnesses’ prophesying in sackcloth, from the time of the Roman emperor’s removing to Constantinople, leaving Rome to the Pope for the seat of his power, in fulfilment of 2 Thes. ii. 7; when “the man of sin” was at least conceived: the end of those years would thus be A.D. 1550, when the revival of the Protestant cause in Germany began: so the term of Antichrist’s power to do, might have had one period in the falling off of England, Scotland, &c. before A.D. 1560, (which he interprets of the seventh trumpet, when the kingdoms of this world became Christ’s, c. xi. 15,) and so, before that settled peace of the gospel, and Antichrist’s ejection; the witnesses having first had their several times of being overcome and killed, in each of their kingdoms, for three years and a half; as in that victory over the Protestants in Germany, about A.D. 1547, just three years and a half before that revival and enjoyment of the peace they have since had: Also in England the martyrdoms under Mary lasted but three years and a half; for the former two years and a half of her reign were spent in making preparations for that war against the witnesses, by statutes made for their burning, &c. Again, in France, A.D. 1572, (about twelve hundred and sixty years after Constantine) the massacre of the Protestants began; but the deceased religion had a resurrection in A.D. 1576. There is also another computation from the birth of Antichrist, about a hundred years after Constantine, (the two centuries later still, in p. 603, may be his naming, or his being of age,) when the western empire itself began first to break into ten kingdoms: accordingly since A.D. 1660, there was begun a second measuring of the temple; and before the finishing of it there will follow another great and eminent slaughter of the witnesses by the beast’s again prevailing over them.

ii. — The allusion to ChrisCs passion in this killing of the witnesses.

In all other passages of this book, the allusions are still to stories of the Old Testament; but this, as standing alone, is in exact conformity to the circumstances of that great centre-story of Christ’s death and resurrection, which being typed of old, are

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now made transcendent patterns beyond all sufferings, (as in Phil. iii. 20, Col. i. 24,) in any former age; whereby we are both provoked to prepare for it, as Christ did; and also comforted against it, as being thereby to be made specially conformable to Christ in his glory also. Thus Christ, after three years and a halfs ministry, (when he had almost earned it in the people’s hearts, the world going after him,) was at length prevailed over by his enemies, and put to death by the sovereign power of Rome, which then had jurisdiction in Jerusalem,) and for three days and a half lay in their power: So when these witnesses are about to finish their testimony, their Pharisean enemies, (afraid of losing their own credit and authority, through their prevailing in the people’s hearts,) will acknowledge the foreign power of Rome, so far as by and under the authority, and for the sake of the beast, to kill them and have them in their power, for three years and a half; whereupon they feast, and “send gifts for joy,” as the Pharisees, ridding themselves of the torment of Christ’s ministry, made the passion-passover the most joyful feast they ever kept. But Christ and his witnesses, both rise again, and with an earthquake too, and also amidst the consternation of their enemies; after which, both ascend to heaven: and to confirm the allusion, the Holy Ghost puts in a parenthesis, (v. 8,) “Where also our Lord was crucified;” meaning either “Sodom and Egypt” and Jerusalem also, “Where also” &c. or, referring to “crucified;” q. d. “where also the witnesses are in like manner to be killed”

in. — The killing of the witnesses executed by the power of the beast, and not by any previous persecutions in the Reformed churches among themselves.

To explain somewhat about this great occurrence yet to come in the church: The power authorizing this slaughter is to be that of the beast, or Pope of Rome, who having regained more or less influence in the places where these witnesses are, is to kill them, (v. 7,) though they are hated also of all their enemies who are of the Reformed religion among them: and besides, the place where their dead bodies lie, (and consequently where the slaughter is to be executed,) is “the city where our Lord was crucified,” (c. xvii. 18,) the jurisdiction of the Roman empre being so called in John’s time; as Popedom is the church of Rome, and all its kingdoms make up “that great city” Now Rome was as the royal palace of the Roman world, whence issued edicts and commands over all; and therefore the sentence of Christ’s death was pronounced by Pilate the Roman governor residing in the holy city: thus the beast of Rome shall again recover so much owning and acknowledging, (by secret combination, or by professed avouchment,) in the places of the Reformation where the witnesses are to be killed, as that for his sake, and at his instigation, those Pharisees, (either as joining

THE BEAST TRIUMPHANT [REV. XI. 7 — 10.

with him, or else using the help of his party,) shall kill them, the beaht having so much hand in it as to be said to do it, and that for the further advancement of his power in these places: Now their dead bodies are to lie “in the street (or extent of the jurisdiction ) of the great city,” (v. 8.) which is the outward court of the temple. Whatever enemies the witnesses have had from among themselves, of the same nation and religion, (as the Pharisees were to Christ,) who have persecuted them from the times of the first Reformation, and made them continue to prophesy in sackcloth, notwithstanding the separation from Antichrist; yet none of all those wars and prevailing are this eminent killing by the beast, with whom these enemies combine, using the help of the Papists against the witnesses; or perhaps beginning again more openly and avowedly to submit to the beast, (as the Pharisees did to Caesar,) to advance whose power they shall kill these witnesses, his greatest and heartiest withstanders: Or, if in doing this, they do not so openly avow the beast’s power, it may yet be said to be done by him, if done through such agents; and we may be suspicious of this, for there is a generation of men, (as shewed out of c. xiii.) set forth as the beast’s last champions, who not at first avowing his name or character, yet receive “the number of his name,” and are reckoned truly his, as interdicting commerce to his opponents, in order to advance him: and I fear they shall proceed yet further, if not to confess the Pope as “infallible head of the church,” yet as “universal patriarch of the west,” so endeavouring to effect union and reconciliation with him; for these men are at first to bring in but an image of Popery, (as Popery was an image of Heathenism,) with intent to introduce more, as was said; whereunto accords this angel’s oath in Dan. xii. 7, concerning the beast’s scattering the saints, &c. And as the Gentiles are to obtain the outward court to tread it down, with the the rest of the holy city, it argues their prevailing so far as to gain a subjection from carnal Protestants, through whom the beast’s power may be said to kill the witnesses, as Pilate crucified Christ in the name of Rome; so Rome through her legates will depose and put to death, in those places, these witnesses: that as Jerusalem was to be the slaughter-house of all the prophets, (Luke xiii. 33,) so Rome is to have a hand in the deaths of all the witnesses, (though others may persecute them too,) and to execute this last great martyrdom: for in her downfall she is to be reckoned with, (c. xviii. 24,) as having the blood of the prophets, and saints, and all the slain found in her: until therefore the Romish flag be advanced on the walls of the court of the temple, we must not reckon the time of the witnesses’ three years and a half to be come; but when we see that “abomination of desolation” begun to be set up, then let us “flee to the mountain.”

iv. — The time of the leasfs enjoying his full victory over the

REV. XI. 7 — 10.] ONLY FOR THREE YEARS AND HALF. 655

witnesses is but three years and a half, though he may be longer a killing them, and obtaining it.

The Popish Gentiles have already been long a besieging the temple, and making war against it, without prevailing yet, even so far as to overcome fully enough the court, and gain the out work; but how far so ever this war may be lengthened out, when it once comes to a complete victory, we are comforted that the witnesses shall begin to rise again from their killing within three years and a half: and as the time of the greatest obscuration is specially noted as the time of the eclipse, so in this great and last hour of the church’s darkness, the time of its eclipse alone is reckoned. The Pharisees plotted long against Christ, consulting his ruin, but prevailed only for three days and a half, “or the midst (or half) of the week,” (Dan. ix. 27,) which days of the witnesses must be prophetically years, (as are the twelve hundred and sixty,) not only so as to exhibittheir deadbodies before nations and tongues, in reports of this beast’s victorious putting them down, but for the Papists to rejoice therein and send their gifts and congratulations: Now just such a three years and half had Jerusalem under Antiochus, when the temple was polluted, and “the daily sacrifice taken away, and the abomination (of idolatryy set up;” see Dan. xi. 81, &c. with the history of the Maccabee? And therefore after Daniel had set forth and ended this his tyrann’ he begins to set out the tyranny of that “wilful king” the Popv, his antitype; as Christ passes from the storjr of Jerusalem’s destruction to its fulfilment in the end of the world: so there is a transition there describing Antichrist, whose ruin and end comes after “ill tidings out of the north,” (the northern Reformations,) had enraged him to “go forth in fury,” utterly to root out the Protestants; in which expedition he is so far to prevail, as “to plant his tabernacles in the glorious holy mountain,” and thus to over-run the church; as Antiochus prevailed over the Jews, and the Pharisees over Christ, in their hour of darkness; so this will be “an hour of temptation coming on the whole Christian world,” c. iii. 10: the enemies think to get the day, but they shall have only their hour in this fearful eclipse; and then will be the revival, as in Hosea vi. 2: For three years and a half also Julian again set up idolatry, after forty years reign of Christianity; and so long shall Popery be again set up on every throne where Protestantism hath reigned, till it be utterly and for ever extirpated.

v. — The nature of the beast’s victory over the witnesses.

Some interpret the killing the witnesses only of a civil death, as witnesses, not as men; taking away all power from them, by a general silencing of ministers, and deposing of magistrates, and men of worth, that profess and uphold religion, putting men from their high places, shutting their shops, burning their books, &c.

656 NATURE OF THE BEAST’S VICTORY. [REV. XI. 7 — 10.

for that as their resurrection is not from a natural death, so their bodies could not be supposed to lie above-ground for three days and a half, before a spirit of life came into them; who being dead must be the same as were killed. Thus also the not suffering them to be put in graves, would signify only what hindered their enemies from killing them outright, the Protestant party in the nations about them preserving them above ground for a reviving, as we leave unburied any of whose death we are not sure: and “the nations, tongues, and kindreds,” seeming a distinct company from the witnesses’ enemies, (who “rejoice over them,” &c.) favours this notion; the angel thus describing the differing spirits of the two sorts of men towards the witnesses, “they of the nations” kindly keeping their bodies out of the grave, and “those that dwell on earth” rejoicing over them. Again, as it was commonly reported that Christ should rise on the third day, (Matt, xxvii. 63,) so this general notion of the Popish party’s prevailing for three years and a half, will influence the witnesses’ friends to interfere against their utter extinction and burial underground, hoping, (like the disciples as long as Christ lay buried in the grave,) that they will rise again from their lying unburied above-ground. Tn answer also to the supposition of this last being the worst and larpest of all struggles, they say, That “killing” here is alone 3cified thus, as being the signal of the Pope’s ruin. But, hough I think it cannot be denied, First, That this lying dead +o, metaphorically, a suppressing by civil death, the now desperate cause of the saints, as witnesses, so putting them down that they remain as men laid forth by the walls for dead, of whose testimony there is no likelihood of a revival; whereat their enemies rejoice; (as the Pharisees thought they had Christ sure enough in the grave, after his condemnation and crucifixion:) So the last war of the beast scatters the power of all the saints, as witnesses, but kills them not all, as men, however the natural lives of many of them may be sacrificed: Yet, Secondly, I fear that so great a victory over and suppressing of the witnesses, will be followed with great effusion of martyrs’ blood; and that such a warring, and overcoming, and killing, import further proceedings by which they get this complete victory: I fear all these metaphors, lest this same killing after overcoming be not really and properly some further cruelty of malicious enemies; for “overcoming “would sufficiently express the mere suppression of them: and in c. xiii. (which is a prophecy of the rage and utmost cruelty the beast should exercise against the saints throughout his whole reign,) all those bloody executions and butcherings of the saints are expressed also by “warring” and “overcoming ,-” the “killing” there omitted, being afterwards expressed so as to shew the cause and manner of the beast’s bloody fall and ruin in the end, and what provokes God and man unto it; for” He that killeth with the sword must be killed with

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the sword,” c. xiii. 7, 10: And though Antichrist’s power is there set out generally, in its height and ruff, during his whole reign over all, and here only his last special war against the witnesses is described, immediately fore-going his ruin; yet the expressions here as there, maybe of the same nature, and import the same mode of prevailing: for though his last war is to issue in the beast’s ruin, yet may he first recover again the like power, and exercise the like cruelty over these witnesses, though for a small space: yea, it may be feared, by that dirge of her own funeral-song which she makes in c. xviii. 6 — 8, that Babylon shall recover her ancient power again, or fully expect it, through her prevailing over some of her lost kingdoms; for only the day before she is to be burnt for a witch and whore, “she saith in her heart, I sitas a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow;” and then follows God’s omnipotent power in her sudden destruction by plagues at once in the midst of her rejoicing. There is a like intimation of the beast’s recovering his power, (Dan. xi. 45;) for “yet he shall come to his end,” unlikely as it is that he should again be put out of such power as he seems so settledly to have regained; even as it appeared impossible that the cause of Christ should again prevail, after the Gentiles and Pharisees had so glutted themselves with his blood, and so triumphed over him in the grave, “Yet (saith Ps. ii. 6,) I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” The cruelties Rome may revive, together with the revival of her influence, may revive also the memory of all her former slaughters, and so provoke God and men, as for this her last blood-shed to bring upon her the blood of all the prophets and martyrs before shed; as the blood of Christ brought upon the Jews the blood of all the righteous down from Abel: and as the ten tribes were enraged against the Benjamif.es with eagerness to root them out, because of their first great victory over themselves; so may the Protestant party be whetted on by fresh killings of the saints to do execution upon such enemies without all mercy, “rewarding her as she had rewarded them,” and •” killing with the sword her that killed with the sword.” But why should this one particular war alone be mentioned by the angel at last, if it were not different from such as Antichrist was wont to make upon the saints, as in c. xiii? I answer, 1st, This war is thus specified as being the last, because it is a signal of the time of Antichrist’s ending, and a manifestation of God’s wonderful dealing, both with the church and with his enemies; that after so great a victory obtained by her against the beast, he should yet have power to do again for a little space, that he might be overthrown when thinking himself as secure as ever. 2dly, It is the last eminent suffering of the European churches, and probably the worst; for sharpest afflictions fore-run the greatest happiness; and here the witnesses die to rise again, and rise again to die no more, as it was with Christ himself. The king of terrors is the porter lo let saints into heaven;

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658 THE NATURE OF THE BEAST’S VICTORY [REV. XI. 7 — 10.

and, says Paul in 1 Cor. iv. 9, “God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed unto death;” alluding to the gladiators or fencers in the Roman games, the last of which three sorts, (being usually slaves or malefactors,) wont to come upon the stage, were appointed not to go off, but to fight it out till they were killed. The greatest persecution of the church under Pagan Rome was that of Dioclesian and the fifth seal, and therefore all Rome’s former martyrings under the former seals do not raise a general cry of their blood, until the arrival of that most cruel persecution; and yet these saints are bid to wait till another martyrdom: but here the witnesses dying as Christ died, shall also rise likewise to die no more. 3dly, This last conquest is mentioned as an epitome of all the witnesses’ sufferings during the whole time of their prophecy, and thus the crisis of their three days and a half is interpreted by, and is a compendium of, their whole time of proprophecy for three years and a half; even as this period reduced to days of twelve hundred and sixty, become again so many prophetical years. Now as Christ’s sufferings, here alluded to, were all summed up in his death; and he was heard and delivered as soon as they came to this,” Why hast thou forsaken me?” so when the church, in her last brunt, shall utter the like voice, know we that delivery is near. 4thly, The beast having been so chased by these witnesses’ prophesying, and having had so many vials emptied upon him and his company, will wreak such vengeance, when once he gets the power again, that “his anger will be fierce, and his wrath cruel,” (as in Gen. xlix. 7;) and the northern Reformation causing such opposition to him, will stir him up to this his last invasion of the churches “to go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to make away many,” Dan. xi. 44: Thus having nothing but blood and cruelty in their hearts, where would it end if God “restrain not the spirits of these princes,” or cut them short by an almighty work of his power. 5thly, In c. xvii. 6, the whore of Rome, just before her ruin, “adds drunkeness (Deut. xxix. 19,) to her thirst for the blood of saints, thus increased by her scorching withjtfre from the witnesses: and that this refers not to her former bloody martyrings, appears from John’s telling us that “one of the seven vial-angels, (probably ihejifth, who poured on the seat of the beast,) shewed him the judgment of the great whore, with whom the kings of the earth had committed fornication,” &c. in so many ages fore-past: for that now in these her old and last days she appears so drunk, it makes me fear her new coming out of her cups of blood, (the draught of some fresh cup making her tipsy again;) but so, that she may be surprised however, Somno Vinoque Sepulta, buried in sleep and drunkenness, (like Babylon) to her greater judgment and confusion. Yet, 6thly, God may perhaps “restrain the remainder of that wrath, and make it praise him, cutting short their spirits,” (Ps. lxxvi. 10, 12:) yea, maugre all their rage, malice, and spirit of revenge; their own wisdom and

REV. XI. 7 — 10.] OVER THE WITNESSES. 659

policy may move them to forbear the full execution of what they could do, so as to moderate the use of their victory, especially in a respect to that Protestant party continuing firm in heart and conscience to the cause of these witnesses, though outwardly overcome. The light of the gospel deeply impressing men’s spirits is not to be extinguished, so as men shall suddenly embrace Popery for truth: and as the Pharisees “for fear of the people,” forbore many attempts against Christ, so may these for fear of those tongues, and kingdoms, and nations in heart favoring Protestants, forbear the extremity of rage in their power; promising themselves perhaps some future more perfect recovery and settlement of their power, and more mischievous ends, when men’s consciences shall be more quieted in Popish ways, and the adverse party more lowered and diminished; till the short date of their full power suddenly expiring, they awake from their dream too late to “destroy and utterly make away many,” see Ps.lxxiii. 20, Isa. xxix. 7, 8. We have experience of the wisdom of this generation of men loving easy and gradual conquests, who find, that by butchering the saints the cause of Protestantism is advanced, and their own religion branded with the bloody mark of the false and whorish church: such was the policy of the apostate Julian, who yet sinned against the Holy Ghost: but he knew that martyrdom increased the church here, and brightened the martyrs’ crown of glory hereafter; and therefore out of envy and a witty malice, he forbore edicts for killing the Christians, and used subtilty to ensnare and tempt men from the truth to the shipwreck of their consciences; and thus he paddled with profane hands in the blood of souls, a sweeter victory to him than that of their bodies: and to mischief and diminish them still more, they were denied schools of learning, and the use of books, and all offices either in war or peace. 6thly, Though these Gentiles are so furious “to root out many,” yet the issue being expressed by the beast’s “planting his tabernacle, (soon to be pulled down again,) on the glorious holy mountain,” may imply no more done in the execution of his destructive design, than taking possession again of the church as his throne; Dan. xi. 44, 45. But, 7thly, Let us fear and prepare for the worst, seeing the sins of the witnesses in yielding so far to the superstitions of Rome as to leave some of them in their churches, like so much filth on the shore from the overflowing of the ocean, (the Romish sea,) and their other sins, as carnal-gospelling, worldly-mindedness, &c. also their base yielding up the outward court and deserting their cause; for many among them “shall do wickedly,” Dan. xii. 10. Lastly, The utmost to be hoped is such a time with the church as that under Julian, whose persecution might be a figure of this to come; that the last of Paganism, this ofPopery: Julian abstained from violence of blood at first, but used deceit; he smote with the tongue rather than with the sword; he studied to ensnare consciences by placing

660 EXTENT OF THE SLAUGHTER. [REV. XI. 7 — 10.

his own image among idols in the forum, that in refusing to do homage to these false gods, the saints might be accused of denying reverence to him; which course ended in much bloodshed, though without the public edicts of former emperors; the people persecuting Christians to death in various parts of the empire to gratify his hatred of them. Now though this prevailing to come, may prove worse than death by martyrdom, through manifold temptations and snares and cruelties, yet may it be rather an hour of temptation and trial to believers in general, (accompanied perhaps with the Gentiles’ killing of many witnesses,) and difficult times, (CHALEPOI, 2 Tim. iii. 1,) of these last days of Popery, than the bloody times of the latter days in 1 Tim. iv. 1; and though the last days may be stained with much blood also; yet many shall certainly survive this war, after being “made white and tried,” (Dan. xii. 10:) for so sudden a resurrection of so great a multitude as shall possess that glorious state of a church described in c. xix. 1 — 10, at three and half years’ end, would hardly arise from a succession of new converts, but from the same persons surviving and out-riding that great storm.