It has lastly been applied by p. Lloyd and Mr. Whiston to the persecution of the Piedmontese protestants, witnesses, upon the principles of symbolical language, must be two Churches: the advocates for religious truth and civil liberty are not two churches-2. As the death of the witnesses means their ceasing to be witnesses, so their revival means their re-assuming the character of witnesses. But the French pro testants neither ceased to be witnesses in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantz; nor, if they had, could they be said to have re-assumed their character by an event, which threw the reins of the French Government into the hands of a set of the most unprincipled miscreants that ever disgraced any age or country. It is true, that some individuals among the French Protestants were compelled to apostatise to Popery; but, so far from this being so generally the case as to warrant our saying that they were figuratively slain as a body, about a million of them gave up their countryrather than their religion, and at least 100,000 of them were murdered-3. By asserting that the three days and a half are so many lunar days or months of years, Mr. Bicheno 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 prophesy 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 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 protestants, which commenced at the latter end of the year 1686, and terminated in June 1690. But 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 great 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?--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-horned beast. The reader will find this position amply proved in the course of a few pages, when I consider Mr. Galloway's hypothesis, who makes the same mistake as Mr. Bicheno in thinking that the witnesses are slain by the second apocalyptic beast, though he supposes that beast to be republican France. Signs of the Times. Part i. p. 17-37. This subject is further considered in my answer to Mr. Bi cheno. I must confess, that his reply to the preceding strictures does not satisfy me. I still think his hypothesis untenable. He acknowledges, that the beast which slays the witnesses is not the second apocalyptic beast; yet he contends, that the mistake does not affect his argument. Mr. Butt, like Mr. Bicheno, refers the slaughter of the witnesses to the revocation of the edict of Nantz, though with some variations which certainly make his scheme much less VOL. II. H objection But here again the very same objections occur; the witnesses were never prophetically slain by their persecution in Piedmont; and this persecution was carried on against them by their sovereign the Duke of Savoy, not by the beast under his last head-In short, I cannot find that the witnesses were ever constrained to cease to be witnesses, with every circumstance which the prophecy requires, except at the era of the Smalcaldic league. All other interpretations, to say nothing of minor objections, fail in a point absolutely essential. They represent the witnesses as being slain, when, in the prophetic sense of death, they were not slain. 6. Bp. Newton, like Jurieu, thinks, that the war of the beast against the two witnesses is to be the last objectionable. He thinks, that the Waldenses and Albigenses are most eminently to be understood by the two witnesses: that the remains of these two ancient churches were slain in April 1685 by the revocation of the edict of Nantz: that they revived in October 1688 by taking refuge in England with the prince of Orange, afterwards William III. and that the great earthquake is the revolution in England. Notes on the Apoc. Part ii. In addition to the other objections, which may be made to this scheme in common with those of M. Jurieu and Mr. Bicheno, it may be observed, that Mr. Butt considers the witnesses as being slain in one street of the city, and as reviving in another, admitting for a moment the propriety of esteeming protestant England the tenth part of the great city: whereas St. John certainly represents them, as being slain, as lying dead, and as reviving, in one and the same street; that street in short, which he styles the broad street or forum. perse 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 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 a great 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 a great 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, and that the principal street; not in every street of it. In this single principal 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 *. 7. There are three objections, which may possibly 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 marked by a circumstance which characterizes no other persecution of the witnesses. A mere persecution is not here predicted. The various ordinary persecutions 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 holy war: I shall hereafter state at large what may be collected from prophecy upon the subject. 1907 of |
