1550; and in the December of the same year defeated the Duke of Mecklenburg, and took him prisoner. Great fear now fell upon all that saw them; but the time was not yet arrived, when they were finally to ascend into the symbolical heaven, in the very sight of their enemies. This was at length accomplished by the peace ratified at Passau in 1552, and confirmed at Augsburg in 1555; by which the protestants were allowed to enjoy the free exercise of their religion. Then it was, that the two prophets ascended into heaven, or, in other words, became an acknowledged church. Hitherto, although possessing political life, they only stood upon their feet on the earth, surrounded and assailed by their imperial and papal enemies: but now they triumphantly ascended into heaven, and firmly established themselves in direct opposition to their enemies who beheld them, the first beast and his instigator the second beast.

Thus it appears, that an accurate comparison of prophecy with history has shewn us both the time when, and the place where, these remarkable events were to take place. It was necessary that the two prophets should receive political life in order to be capable of political death. This they first did throughout the whole Roman empire, in Germany. It was further necessary, in order to the exact accomplishment of the prediction, that they should be slain in a street of the great city peculiarly under the control of the last head of the beast.

This street is Germany likewise. To Germany therefore we must look, and to no other street of the city, for the completion of the prophecy. Accordingly upon looking there we have found, that, as the prophets first received political life in Germany, so they first experienced political death there: that this political death was inflicted upon them by the very agent pointed out by St. John, the beast under his last head: that the prophets resumed the functions of political life in the autumn of

"Hoc suadet oppositionis ratio, ut talis sit cædes, qualis resurrectio. Resurrecsio autem hæc non est propriè dicta, qualis nulla futura est ante adventum Christi, sed analogica et politica, qua ad honorem rerumque regimen suscitabuntur. In stylo sacro Vivere subinde est Esse, et Mori est Non esse.” Med. et Mor. apud Pol. Synop, in loc.

1550, exactly three years and a half from the spring of 1547 when they were slain; and now, once more standing upon their feet, routed the Duke of Mecklenburg in the December immediately following and lastly that they ascended into the ecclesiastical heaven, after they had stood on their feet upon the earth, and after great fear had fallen upon their enemies, in the year 1552; when, by the treaty of Passau, the emperor was compelled to allow them the free exercise of their religion, and to readmit them into the imperial chamber, from which they had been excluded ever since the victory of Mulburg.

All the interpretations, which have been given of this prophecy, except the present, appear to have failed, from the paying too exclusive an attention to the allotted period of three days and a half; and from not taking into the account those other parts of the prediction, which point out both the time when, the place where, and the imperial head under which, it was to receive its completion. Several of these interpretations are mentioned by Bp. Newton-The prophecy in question has been applied for instance to the council of Constance, which sat about three years and a half, enacted many laws against pretended heretics, and condemned to the flames John Huss and Jerome of Prague. But these two martyrs were only individuals: they cannot with any propriety be termed two candlesticks, or two churches: they did not prophesy 1260 years: they were incapable of revivification, for it is a mere evasion of the plain words of St. John to say, that they revived in their followers: consequently they cannot be the two apocalyptic prophets-It has also been applied to the French massacre of the protestants on the eve of St. Bartholemew 1572, and the treaty of Henry the third with the Huguenots concluded May the 14th 1576; whereby all the protestants, about three years and a half after the massacre, were admitted to the free and open exercise of their religion. But this exposition will in no respect accord with the prophecy, except in the coincidence of the three years and a half: for the protestants never did more than preach in sackcloth throughout France,

not being able to obtain political life in that country; and, even if they had obtained political life there, as they did in England, still the war would have been made upon them, not by the beast, as St. John assures us should be the case, but only by one of his ten horns or the French sovereign-It has likewise been applied by Jurieu to the persecution of the French protestants after the revocation of the edict of Nantz. But this pious author's exposition is not only liable to the same objections as the preceding one, but has since shared the fate of most human prophecies founded upon a divine prophecy. He ventured to foretell, that that should be the last persecution of the Church; that the witnesses should lie dead three years and a half from the year 1685, when the edict was revoked; that the Reformation should then be established by royal authority throughout the kingdom; and that the whole country should renounce Popery, and embrace Protestantism. Events have precluded the necessity of any other confutation*-It has

This notion of Jurieu's has, with some variations, been recently revived by Mr. Bicheno. He asserts, that the two witnesses represent the advocates for religious truth and civil liberty; that the beast, which slays them, is the second apocalyptic beast; that that second beast is the French monarchy from the time of Louis XIV; that the witnesses were slain in the year 1685 by the revocation of the edict of Nantz; that the three days and a balf, during which they lay dead, are what he styles three lunar days and a half, in other words, three prophetic months and a half or 105 natural years; and that at the end of these 105 years they revived and stood upon their feet by means of the French revolution in the year 1789.

I think him quite mistaken, for the following reasons-1. The witnesses, upon the principles of symbolical language, must be two churches: the advocates for religious truth and civil liberty are not two churches-2. The witnesses plainly represent a body of men eminent for Christian piety; and, as their death means their political extinction, SÓ their resurrection means their political revival. Thus Ezekiel represents the restoration of the bouse of Israel to their ancient political existence among the nations, under the similar imagery of a resurrection of dry bones. (Ezek. xxxvii.) How then can the pious witnesses be said to be raised up again to political life by an event, which threw the reins of the French government into the hands of a set of the vilest and most unprincipled miscreants that ever disgraced any age or country? According to the prophet, the selfsame body of men, that were politically slain, were politically to revive. Mr. Bicheno surely cannot in sober seriousness affirm, that the martyrs of the revocation of the edict of Nantz revived in the persons of those blessed advocates for religious truth and civil liberty, the demagogues of the infidel republic-3. By asserting that the three days and a half are so many lunar days or months of years, he violates both the general analogy of prophetic computation, and in a yet more striking manner the particular analogy of that used in the present prediction. It is first said, that the witnesses are to prophecy 1260 days, and afterwards it is said that they are to lie dead three days and a half. Now we can scarcely suppose, that St. John uses two entirely different modes of computation in the same prophecy; for, in fact, if he did, there could be no certainty in any numerical prediction: it must be left entirely to the arbitrary decision of a commentator to say whether a prophetic day

lastly been applied by Bp. Lloyd and Mr. Whiston to the persecution of the Piedmontese protestants, which commenced at the latter end of the year 1686, and terminated in June 1690. But here again the very same objections occur the prophets never had political life in Piedmont; and the persecution was carried on against them by their sovereign the Duke of Savoy, not by the beast under his last head.

Bp. Newton, like Jurieu, thinks, that the war of the beast against the two witnesses is to be the last persecution of the Church. Were this opinion well founded, it would alone completely overthrow my application of the prophecy to the history of the league of Smalcalde ; because both the revocation of the edict of Nantz, and the persecution of the Piedmontese, were posterior to the protestant war in Germany. But in truth no such thing is even hinted at by St. John: indeed, if it were, he would contradict himself. He begins with informing us, that the witnesses should prophesy the whole of the 1260 years, clothed in sackcloth. He next predicts their war with the beast. And he lastly notes the sounding of the seventh trumpet. It is plain therefore, that their war with the beast was to take place before the sounding of the seventh trumpet: yet, since the greatest

means a natural year, or a month of natural years; in other words, whether it means one year or 30 years. Mr. Bicheno himself allows however, that the 1260 days are 1260 years. If then the 1260 days, during which the witnesses prophesy be 1260 natural years; we must, I think, necessarily conclude, unless we make St. John guilty of a most singular inconsistency, that the three days and a half, during which they lie dead, are three natural years and a half likewise. All that Mr. Bicheno says, respecting what he terms the decorum of symbols, seems to me a mere gratuitous assumption. Had the apostle meant to intimate, that the witnesses should continue in a state of political death during 105 years, I can discover no symbolical impropriety in his saying that their dead bodies should lie unburied 105 days. Ezekiel, we know, represents the long political death of the house of Israel under the imagery of dead bodies lying so long unburied that nothing remained of them but dry bones: why then should Mr. Bicheno think it so grievous an impropriety, that the apostle should have said, that the dead bodies of the witnesses lay unburied 105 days, if he had intended 105 years? The truth is, that he meant to express, not 105 years, but simply three years and a half-4. But, even if none of these objections existed, still his scheme would not hold good, even upon his own principles. Let the second apocalyptic beast be what it may, it is not that beast which slays the witnesses, as Mr. Bicheno supposes, but the first or ten-borned beast. The reader will find this position amply proved in the course of a few pages, when I consider Mr. Galloway's hy pothesis, who makes the very same mistake as Mr. Bicheno in fancying that the witnesses are slain by the second apocalyptic beast, though he supposes that beast to be republican France. In truth, the beast has just as little relation to France under the est government, as to France under the other. Signs of the times. Part 1. p. 17-87.

part of the seventh trumpet synchronizes with the last period of the 1260 years, some of the witnesses, long after the war of their German brethren with the beast, had still to continue prophesying in sackcloth, or in a state of persecution, during the greatest part of the time that the seventh trumpet was sounding; that is to say, during the pouring out of its first six vials: whence it is manifest, that the war of the beast cannot be the last persecution; because, if it were, the witnesses would cease to prophesy in sackcloth, even before the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and consequently would not continue to prophesy in sackcloth during the whole space of the 1260 years. The fact is, the witnesses were to be slain and to lie exposed only in one particular street of the city, not in every street of it. In this single street the whole scene of their war with the beast is laid there they are slain; there they revive; and there they ascend to heaven. It will follow therefore, that the establishment of protestantism in Germany, the cradle of the reformation, does not exempt other protestants from still continuing in a persecuted state during the whole of the 1260 years. The war with the beast is a particular, not a general, persecution: and the context of the whole prophecy amply shews, that it was not to be the last particular persecution, though it might be the last in protestant Germany.*

I am only aware of two objections, which can be made to my application of this prediction to the Smalcaldic league.

1. The first objection is, why this persecution should be particularly noticed more than many others of at least equal, if not greater, magnitude and importance. I answer, that, independent of its undoubted importance, it is a perfect unique in the history of the 1260 years. The French and Bohemian protestants have been stimulated to rebellion by the persecutions of their rulers; the Waldenses have been cruelly harassed formerly; and the Savoyards have been no less cruelly treated in more

It is probable, that, although there may not be precisely another persecution of protestantism there will be a war undertaken partly at least for the express purpose of utterly crushing it. I have already more than once hinted at this boly war: I shall hereafter state at large what may be collected from prophecy upon the subject.