witnesses are as incompetent as any of those summoned by other expositors, such as Enoch and Elijah, John Huss and Jerome of Prague, &c. For two things in this case are evident. First, that St. John is, in general, exceedingly concise in his descriptions. A prophecy entirely confined to figures and emblems, must needs be so, To overcharge it, would be not to elucidate, but create confusion, Secondly, that he has in this part of his prophecy appeared to depart from the general conciseness of his manner, and given a comparatively long and laboured account of his two witnesses, as characters which bear a principal part in his prophetical history from the beginning of the reign of the beast, to its end, and after it even to the millennium, when the beast himself has totally disappeared, and is represented by a false prophet, and a third or new beast, The death of the witnesses is the time of reigning and triumph to the new tri umvirate, and the fall of that impious coali-, tion (220) is the calling of the raised witnesses? (221) up to heaven. No part of the Apoca

(220) Rev. xix. 20.

(221) Revoxi. 12

lypse forms a more interesting scene, is de scribed with more circumstantiality, or has a greater stress laid upon it by the holy Spirit, than the history of the witnesses, which contains in itself an epitome of the whole Revelation. For though the witnesses only become protestants, that is, preachers against the corruptions of the church of Rome at the time when that church became the apocalyptic beast, yet both the holy witnesses of the pure truth of the gospel, and the corruption of it by the church of Rome, existed antecedently to this fixed time; which is only pitched upon by the Spirit of prophecy as affording a remarkable epocha in church history, on which to found a prophetical period, that should both begin and end in an imperial despotic decree. (222)

(222) It is easily allowed that the corruptions in the church had got to a great height before the time of Pope Vigilius and Justinian, and that the Pope did not attain to the full splendour of his temporal power and three crowns till after this time. But if he was gratified by Justinian with the govern ment of Rome and the vicinity, that is sufficient to make a beginning, and for the foundation of a prophetical period, at an epocha of great notoriety. One thing is certain. The time of his deposition by an imperial decree fixes the year 548 as the epocha of the commencement of his reign as the apocalyptic beast.

How the existence of the two witnesses is to be accounted for, after the term allotted to the beast is expired, and he is politically and prophetically slain, and his very image destroyed, a new beast, and a new representative of the image, being now the actors of the ensuing tragedy, is a difficulty to be attended to. For the period assigned to the witnesses is the same as that of the beast; but it is obvious that their time, on this hypothesis, ought to continue as much after his is ended, as it began later than his beginning. And that this must have been the case, in matter of fact, is equally plain. The iniquities of holy church must previously exist, and become very notorious, before good men would suspect the possibility that she could err, and much more open a public protest against her, as mother of barlots, and abominations of the earth." Their days, however, we certainly know cannot now be many, and the calamitous time of the triumph of their enemies is at hand. It will therefore be very desirable to ascertain, upon some reasonable ground of probability, who the witnesses really are. That they cannot be those of Mr. Sharp ap

"the

pears to me very evident, not only for the reasons above assigned, but many more. I will only instance a few.

1st. Their time.—The prophecy (Rev. xi.) begins with giving power to the witnesses.But it does not appear that the powers of conscience and reason, when given to man, were ever limited to a term of 1260 years;-or that they had no power to testify against evil before the year 548, and can have none any more after the year 1808. If we should say, the prophecy speaks with regard to the temporary object of their protest, the wickedness and errors of the beast and image ;—these are now gone, yet the prophets continue to protest; and the errors and wickedness of the bestial characters which survive is not now less than those of their predecessors, and will within a while even exceed them., Conscience and reason were never more outraged than by the death of Christ himself, and his holy apostles, long before this power given to the witnesses, and limited to a time for their office to begin and end. (223)

(223)

Swow And I will give power &c.—It was not yet given in St. John's time. VOL. III. M m

2d. Their miracles.-It does not appear how conscience and reason (even figuratively) can be said to kill their enemies by fire out of their mouths, and to shut heaven, that it rain not on the kingdom of the beast, in the days of their prophecy, and to have power over the waters, or people, to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth, or Roman catholic empire, with plagues, at their pleasure. If the witnesses be two individual men (as some have supposed), these difficulties will not be diminished. But if we consider them as a nation or nations professing the genuine gospel, and by the divine blessing upon their efforts, chastising the malignant and never ceasing persecution (religious and political) of their enemies; yet still cloathed in sackcloth, and suffering much and often, even from the very successes of their never ending warfare; this hypothesis will abate something of the difficulty. It is not said that they should do these wonders during the whole 1260 years. If they act up to this character towards the concluding part of their testimony, it is sufficient. The popes were not all like Gregory VII. or Alexander VI. Neither were the