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Before the prophets can be capable of experiencing political death, the only death to which a community is liable, they must receive political life.*

This never

was the case previous to the time of the Reformation; therefore the prophets cannot have been slain before the Reformation. Many years indeed antecedent to that era, they had continued prophesying in sackcloth; many years was the sad narrative of their persecutions written within and without with lamentations, and mourning, and woe as yet however they were not slain, for as yet they were incapable of a political death. But at the Reformation they first received in Germany political life consequently at the Reformation they first became liable to political death. To this era I have already thought myself warranted in peculiarly referring the second persecution of the men of understanding, which Daniel describes as taking place previous to the revelation of the atheistical king; and to this era I now think myself equally warranted in looking for an accomplishment of the present prophecy.

The foe, that slays the witnesses, is styled the beast of the bottomless pit: and this beast will be found, upon

Hence St. John predicts, in a similar manner, the subversion of the Eastern empire, under the image of the third part of men being killed by the Euphratean borsemen; having previously informed us, that the Saracenic locusts should not be allowed to kill the men who had not the seal of God in their foreheads, but only to torment them, because their commission extended no further than to barass the Roman empire. See the preceding remarks upon these prophecies.

†They were not established as a church in England till the accession of Edward the sixth in the year 1547; at which period their cause had already been espoused by the Elector of Saxony, and other German sovereigns. These princes associated themselves into what was called the league of Smalcalde, in the years 1530, 1531, 1535, and 1537; and in that city first called themselves protestants. Then it was that the witnesses received political life. "Mori ea notione dicitur qui in quo cunque statu constitutus, sive Politico sive Ecclesiastico, seu quovis alio, desinit esse quod fuit; unde et occîdit qui tali morte quemquam afficit." (Mede's Comment. Apoc. in myst. duor. test.) This excellent definition of Mr. Mede's shews the propriety of the distinction which I have made between the death of the third part of men or the Roman community, and the death of the Roman beast. Death in both cases signifies the causing them to cease to be what they were before. Hence the death of a community is the causing a community to cease from existing as a community; and the death of a beast is the causing a beast or idolatrous empire to cease from existing as a beast or idolatrous empire.

The allegory, here used by St. John, was very familiar to the Hebrew prophets. They frequently predict the restoration of the Israelites from their present scat tered state, their state of political death, under the image of a resurrection from the dead. Let the reader peruse Ezekiel xxxvii, and he will acquire a very clear conception of the principle on which the apocalyptic prediction, relative to the death and revival of the two witnesses, is founded.

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examination, to be the first beast of the Apocalypse, or the beast with seven heads and ten horns.* In short, as

it shall be fully shewn hereafter, he is the same as Daniel's fourth beast, or the Roman Empire: and he slays the witnesses by the instrumentality of his last head.† Before we can understand therefore the import of the prediction relative to the death of the witnesses, which is to take place towards the close of the 1260 years, and under the second woe-trumpet, we must learn what form of Roman government is intended by the last head of the beast. This matter however must be reserved for future discussion, when the whole character of the beast is considered at large. For the present then, in order that the thread of the prophecy relative to the witnesses may be preserved unbroken, I must be allowed to assume, that this last head is not the Papacy, as Mr. Mede and Bp. Newton suppose, but the line of the Gothic Emperors of the West; the first of whom was Charlemagne, and whose representative, at the time of the Reformation was Charles the fifth.

Now, upon consulting history, we shall find, that the witnesses first received political life in the years 1530, 1531, 1535, and 1537, by the formal association of the protestant German princes in the league of Smalcalde: and that shortly afterwards the Roman beast under his last head, and at the instigation of his colleague the two horned ecclesiastical beast, began to make open war upon them with a view to crush the Reformation in the bud. Infinite Wisdom determined to try," the patience

Compare Rev. xi. 7. with Rev. xiii. 1. and xvii. 7, 8. + Or to speak more accurately his septimo-octave bead. "The seven heads are seven kings - The beast, that was, and is not even he is the eighth, and is of the seven." (Rev. xvii. 9, 10, 11.) Thus it appears, that St. John identifies even the bole beast with bis last bead, on account of the vast power which this last bead was destined at its first rise to possess: consequently, when he asserts, that the beast should make war upon the witnesses, since the chronology of the prophecy shews that the beast should do this under his last bead, and since St. John identifies the beast with his last bead, it is manifest that this war was to be undertaken by the last bead of the beast. The same remark applies to the last war of the beast, the false prophet, and the kings of the earth, against the Lamb. The beast here, as in the former instance, means the last bead of the beast; and the kings of the earth or Roman empire, those sovereigns who are in communion with the false prophet, This subject will be fally discussed hereafter.

See Rev. xiii. 11.

and faith of the saints," by making him for a short season completely successful in his projects. On the 24th* of April 1547, he totally routed the protestants in the battle of Mulburg in consequence of which defeat their two great champions, who had given them political life, the Elector of Saxony, and the Landgrave of Hesse, were compelled to submit to the Emperor on terms of absolute discretion.

The prophets were now politically dead; but they were not long to continue so: whence it is said, that they lay unburied. The place, where their dead bodies were thus exposed, was a street of the great city, "spir itually called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." The excellent Bp. Newton, and the learned Mr. Mann of the Charter House whom he cites, needlessly perplex themselves with elaborately shewing, how the city of Rome may be said to be the city where our Lord was crucified: whence they conclude, that, whenever this prophecy is accomplished, the dead bodies of the prophets will lie unburied in some literal street of the literal great city; "some conspicuous place within the jurisdiction of Rome," as the Bishop expresses himself. The great city however, the mystic Babylon, which throughout the Apocalypse is represented in constant and direct opposition to the holy city, or the Church, is certainly not the city, but the empire of Rome whence a street of this great city is a kingdom or province of the empire, considered as a whole; and a tenth part of the city, as mentioned in the thirteenth verse of the present chapter, is not a tenth part of the literal city of Rome, but a tenth part of the Roman empire, and consequently is precisely equivalent to one of the ten horns or kingdoms of the beast. This being the case, there is no need to seek for a spiritual sense, in which our Lord may be said to have been crucified in the great city: he literally suffered within its precincts; for he was put to death in Palestine, at

Brightman says, the 22d of April.

The temporal Babylon is the temporal empire of Rome; the spiritual Babylon is the spiritual empire of the Roman Pontiff.

that time a province of the Roman empire. This obvious exposition will shew the great accuracy of the

* « Urbs magna 1. Sodoma; 2. Ægyptus. Hinc discimus urbem magnam ad totum bestia regnum extendi, nam Ægyptus non civitas erat, sed regnum. 3. Interfectrix Christi. Hinc constat Romam hoc loco non intelligi. Christus autem in Romana urbe crucifixus dicitur, i. e. in ejus finibus et imperio; in urbis platea, h. e. intra ditionem Romanam, sive in provincia ipsius." Pol. Synop. in loc.

"Hæc urbs magna est tota illa ditio cujus est Roma metropolis: quo sensu decima pars urbis cadit, infra ver. 13. Platea est pars aliqua Romana ditionis, in qua spectaculum hoc visendum exhibetur, cujus gaudium se diffundit per totum imperium. Urbs autem ipsa magna una cum metropoli sua in reliquo versu describitur, idque duobus disertis nominibus, et adjuncta simul insigni nota, nequis in orbe forsan erraret - Primum nomen est Sodoma-Secundum nomen est Egyptus, non urbs aliqua, qualis Sodoma, sed integra regio et provincia. Unde hoc nomen non est proprium ipsius metropolis, sed totius ejus ditionis commune." Apoc. Apoc. Fol. 174, 175.

"The great city is that city which reigneth over the kings of the earth, or Rome, the empress of the world. Streets of the great city are its public places throughout its dominion; for the great city is not considered so much in its buildings, as a seat of empire. It is Rome and the Roman empire, says the Bp. of Meaux; and, taking the great city for Rome and its empire, he adds, It is literally true, that Jesus Christ was crucified there, even by the Roman power. And it is moreover true, that the same Rome, which crucified Christ in person, crucified him also every day in his members. The general meaning of this passage is well expressed by Mr. Daubuz: The dead bodies of the witnesses skall lie throughout the extent, in the most conspicuous places, or the chief and principal parts, of the Antichristian jurisdiction." (Lowman's Paraph. in loc.) Had Mr. Daubuz said singularly a street or a conspicuous place, as the Apostle does, instead of expressing himself plurally, I should have had nothing to object.

"In the street of the great city, i. e. in Bohemia, one street of the papal dominions, or the great city Rome, in a large sense." (Fleming's Apoc. Key, p. 41.) I do not think Bohemia to be the street intended; but Mr. Fleming's mode of interpretation is the same as my own.

"It is probable the whole Roman empire may be here represented, as one idolatrous and impure city; 2s elsewhere the Church of Christ is represented by one pure boly and glorious city." (Doddridge's Paraph. in loc.) This argument from analogy is an excellent one.

“It is a truth, which must be held as certain, being one of the keys of the Revelation, that the city, the great city, signifies in this book, not Rome alone, but Rome in conjunction with its empire: the name of this great city is Babylon-This being supposed and proved, that the city is the whole Babylonish and Antichristian empire, it must be remembered that this empire of Antichrist is made up of ten kingdoms and of ten kings, who must give their power to the beast. A tenth part of the city fell; that is one of these ten kingdoms which make up the great city, the Babylonish empire, shall forsake it-Now what is this tenth part of the city which shall fall? In my opinion, we cannot doubt that it is France - The kings, who yet remain under the empire of Rome, must break with her, leave her solitary and desolate. But who must begin this last revolt? It is most probable that France shall-- Seeing the tenth part of the city, which must fall, is France, this gives me some hopes that the death of the two witnesses hath a particular relation to this kingdom. It is the street or place of this city; that is, the most conspicuous and eminent part of it." (Jurieu's Accomp. of the Script. Proph. Part II. p. 261-267.) The reader will perceive the points wherein I differ from M. Juricu: the passage is cited simply to shew what he understood by the great city. “Civitatem illam magnam, quæ regnum gerit in reges terræ, non tam urbem quampiam moenibus cinctam (quanquam a tali, ceu acropoli quadam, originem ducere potest), quam multitudinem sociatam per caput aut capita, utentem potestate imperandi, tanquam jure metropoleos ostendimus. Prophetæ metaphoras et ænigmata amant. Ita arvitas est quasi civitas ; forum, quasi forum. Ita Apoc. X. 8. Civitas magna, ubi Christus crucifixus est Romanam ditionem notat." Heidegger. Myst. Bab. Mag. Tom. I. p. 219.

The two mystic prophets were not, at the precise time alluded to by St. John, to lie dead and unburied throughout the whole of the great city; but only, as he expressly informs us in one particular street or region of it. Now, since

prophecy now under consideration.

their persecutor upon this occasion was to be the beast under his last head, the street of the city, where they were to lie unburied, must evidently be that region of the empire which should be subject to the more immediate jurisdiction of the last head. Accordingly in the very year 1547, when the prophets were politically slain in Germany, the figurative street under the special control of the last head; they first obtained political life in another street of the great city, where the last head had no authority, by the accession of Edward the sixth to the throne of England.

St. John informs us, that their dead bodies were to lie unburied in this street of the city precisely three days and a half; that is, three natural years and a half: when they should suddenly come to life again, stand firmly upon their feet, and ascend triumphantly to heaven, in spite of the machinations of their enemies.

The two prophets, as we have seen, were slain by the beast in the battle of Mulburg, on the 24th of April 1547. By this decisive victory the cause of the refor mation seemed irretrievably ruined in Germany, the street of the great city where their dead bodies lay unburied the mass was restored; protestantism was in a manner suppressed and they that dwelt upon the Roman earth, the papists of the various tongues and nations into which the great city had been divided by the incursions of the Goths, rejoiced over the two prophets that tormented them by their troublesome admonitions; and made merry; and sent gifts one to another. But this joy was of no very long continuance. The sure word of prophecy had declared, that it should last only three years and a half. Accordingly the reformers again stood upon their feet at Magdeburg in the October of the year

* In una platearum. Pol. Synop. in loc.

+ It is worthy of observation, that Spain was not subject to Charles V. as the latt head, but as one of the ten borns, of the beast.

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