of the witnesses, and their various sufferings for the truth, possess no features that sufficiently, discriminate them from each other: hence they are foretold in general under the phrase of prophesying in sackcloth. But the war of the beast, so particularly spoken of, was to be something more than an ordinary persecution. It was to be a persecution producing apostasy. The beast was to slay the witnesses: he was to cause them to cease to be witnesses. In consequence of his violence, they were no longer, as before, to prophesy in sackcloth. They were to cease to prophesy altogether. Nor is this all: at the end of three years and a half they were to resume their prophetic functions. Here then we have a marked peculiarity, which sufficiently distinguishes the present persecution from all other persecutions, and which renders it abundantly worthy of a place in prophecy. (2.) The second objection is, that the war of the beast against the witnesses was to take place when they were drawing near to the end of their testimony; whereas the German protestants were compelled to receive the Interim in the year 1548, which is already near three centuries ago-This objection however will not appear of any great weight, when the whole duration of the Apostasy is considered; for three centuries are either a long or a short period according to the number with which they are compared. The Apostasy of 1260 years most probably commenced, as we have seen, in 606: consequently, in the year 1548 the wit- » nesses had prophesied upwards of nine centuries, or very near three quarters of their whole testimony. The remaining period therefore was short in comparison with that which preceded it; and indeed the whole period subsequent to the Reformation may properly be styled the latter end of the 1260 years*. (3.) The third objection is, that the witnesses did not remain spiritually dead during the whole three years and a half of the Interim, because several of the German states, such as Magdeburg for instance, did not immediately submit to it, but continued to protest against it during a considerable time after its promulgation-I answer, that prophetic periods are computed from some remarkable act, which may be considered as marking their commencement, to some other remarkable act, which may be considered as marking their termi nation. Thus we are told by Daniel, that the saints are to be given into the hand of the little papal horn during the space of 1260 years. Now this period is to be computed from the time when * It may also be added, that, since the firm establishment of the Reformation, the sufferings of the witnesses have been very greatly mitigated; insomuch that what they have endured during the last quarter of the period of their prophesying in sackcloth is not to be compared with their troubles during the three first quarters of it. Would that we were more sensible of the great mercy of God in being allowed to enjoy the undisturbed exercise of our religion for what are we better than our fathers, that the Almighty should shew himself thus gracious to us? : they they were formally given into its hand by an act of the secular power, to the commencement of the Antichristian expedition to Palestine and of the restoration of the Jews. But, in literal matter of fact, all the saints have not been subjected to the Papacy during the whole period of the 1260 years, though some of them constantly have: because all were not immediately brought under the yoke, and many were delivered from it at the era of the reformation long before the end of that period. Thus « likewise the time, assigned by Isaiah and Jeremiah for the desolation of Tyre, the captivity of Judah, and the servitude of the nations round about Pàlestine, is seventy years; namely the duration of the Babylonish monarchy, reckoning from the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in what is sometimes esteemed the first year of his reign* to the first year of Cyrust. And yet Tyre was conquered only about the middle of that period, and remained in a state of subjection not much more than half of it: and the nations were subdued, some sooner and some later; but the end of the period was the common term for the deliverance of them all. On this same principle I have interpreted the * That is, in the reckoning of Jeremiah, though not in that of Ptolemy: the former computing from his admission by his father into a share of the government; the latter, from his accession to sole empire by the death of his father. Isaiah xxiii. 15, 17-Jerem. xxv. 9, 10, 11. See Bp. Lowth on Isaiah xxiii. 15. His Lordship however seems to me to be mistaken in reckoning the 70 years from the reputed the death of the witnesses. Many, indeed most, of the German protestants immediately submitted to the Interim; others did not submit immediately : but, from the time of its promulgation to the revival of the witnesses, precisely three years and a half elapsed *. 8. It reputed first year of Nebuchadnezzar to the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, because that is a period of only 68 years. Dr. Blayney abundantly shews, that they must be reckoned as I have stated above. See Blayney on Jerem. xxv. 11. Mr. Butt does indeed object, that the witnesses cannot then have been slain, because their testimony was not then finished, the 1260 years not having then expired (Comment. on Daniel's last vision. p. 47.). The prophet however, as I have already very fully shewn, does not say, that they should be slain when their testimony was finished, but when it was about to be finished. Mr. Butt argues, in a similar manner, from Rev. x. 6, 7, that' the 1260 years expire immediately before the sounding of the seventh trumpet (Ibid. p. 43.); whereas St. John makes no such assertion. I have at the beginning of this work shewn at large, that they expire, not at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, but at the effusion of the seventh vial. Hence, Mr. Butt's arrangement of the 1260 years must be erroneous, even independent of another consideration. He supposes them to commence in the year 455, and to terminate in the year 1697, reckoning them as equal to only 1242 solar years. He allows however that they are the time, during which the saints should be given into the hand of the papal horn (Ibid. p. 27.), Now I see not how it can be said, that the saints ceased to be under the domination of the Papacy, merely in consequence of the final withdrawing of England from the yoke of Rome. The greatest part of the continent was still devoted to Popery; and the Protestants still occasionally suffered persecution, and constantly prophesied in sackcloth, How then can the 1260 years have expired in the year 8. It is a trite observation, that one error generally prepares the way for another. This is the case with Mr. Galloway's interpretation of the prophecy respecting the two witnesses. He assumes as proved, that the two witnesses are the two Tes taments; and that their enemy, the beast of the bottomless pit, is the same as the second apocalyptic beast, or the beast of the earth, which he conceives to be "the powers of Atheism established by revolutionary France." From these premises he concludes, that the three days and a half, during which the witnesses were to lie dead, are the same as the times and time and dividing of a time, during which the saints were to be worn out by the little horn of the fourth beast: and consequently, since the little horn, as well as the beast of the earth, is, upon his hypothesis, revolutionary France, that Daniel and St. John allude to one and the same event; namely, the suppression of Christianity in France, during the space of three years and a half. I have already shewn the erroneousness of this conjecture, so far as the little horn is concerned; I shall now point year 1697 Nor is this all: 75 years after the expiration of that period, the Millennium is to commence. The Millennium has not yet commenced. I know Mr. Butt gives a different interpretation of Daniel's 1290 and 1335 days, computing them with Mede from the profanation of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes but, in the first place, I think with Bp. Horsley, that all the latter part of Dan. xi. has no sort of relation to Antiochus; and, in the second place, I can discover no great blessedness in living in the time when Arnold of Brescia was burnt alive, Mr. Butt's era of the expiration of the 1335 days. .out, |