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The power of these witnesses over the waters to turn them to blood and to smite the earth with allplagues so often as they will, is explained by Exod. iv. 9, and vii. 17, and may be predictive of the effects that will flow from the contempt and neglect of the church and ordinances of the gospel to the multitude of the people of the nation at large (always prefigured in scripture by waters and earth) by promoting domestic and foreign wars and bloodshed to a very great degree, with the many other plagues, as pestilence and famine, usually attendant on general confusion and anarchy in a nation.

7th. verse-And when they shall be about to finish, as it should be rendered) have finished their testimony, the beast (or living creature) that ascend. eth out of the bottomless pit, shall make war against them and kill them.

The period of this part of the prophecy is, when the witnesses shall be about concluding their testimony, that is, towards or near the end of the Roman hierarchy, and a short time previous to its destruction and the restoration of the church of Christ to its

fore the angel who called for this, cometh out of the place where the altar standeth, and is said to have power over the fire, even the fire of martyrdom-for that is commonly known, that the blood of the martyrs cryeth to God for revenge for surely the seripture every where witnesseth that the divine power will bestow neither prosperity upon the ehurch nor inflict punishment upon their enemies without their prayers. Mede on Rev. xiv. ch. 18th verse.

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primitive purity, a government shall arise within the - former Roman empire, (being one of the ten kingdoms into which it was subdivided) designated by this beast or living animal, that shall make war against these witnesses of God, and overcome them, and to all human appearance shall kill them.

This killing of the witnesses, is to be analogicalFor it is not uncommon in scripture, to use language in this manner, as to live, is often used for, to be, and to die, for not to be. So it is said, we live to God, when we enter into his service and keep his commandments

-we die to sin, when we cease to be the servants or slaves of satan. "He is said to die, who, being settled in any state whatsoever, whether political or ecclesiastical, ceaseth to be what he was. So he is said to kill who punisheth any one with such a death." Therefore these witnesses are said to be killed, when they are wholly prevented from the exercise of their testimony, so that they no longer use their prophetical office.*

*Both Sir Isaac Newton and Dr Clark interpreted" the reign of this beast to mean the open avowal of infidelity," and they conjectured, that the state of religion in France, and the manners of the age, combined with the divine oracles, would announce the approaching reign of the beast. And they considered it as possible, that the ecclesiastical constitution of France would soon be subverted; and that the standard of infidelity would be first set up there-and they supposed this verse to foretel this important era in the christian world.

Amongst the causes by which popery had an obvious tendeney to produce infidelity, must be reckoned their treatment of

As the former beast was identified by having seven heads and ten horns; so here this last beast, is to be as certainly known, by his rising out of the bottomless pit. The earth in prophetical language, generally is descriptive of the mass of the common people at large;* may not then the bottomless pit,

the holy scriptures. "The popes, says Mosheim, permitted their champions to indulge themselves openly in reflections injurious to the dignity of the sacred writings; and by an excess of blasphemy, almost incredible, (if the passions of men. did not render them capable of the greatest enormities) to deelare publicly, that the edicts of the pontiffs and the records of oral tradition were superior, in point of authority, to the express language of the holy scriptures. It is well known that the Romanists decried the sacred original as much as possible; and that the vulgate translation, because it abounded in errors, and might be more easily perverted to their purpose, was deelared by a solemn decree of the Council of Trent, an authentic, that is, a faithful, accurate and perfect translation. In the true spirit of this decree, Morini was employed in the laborious work (Biblicarum seu mavis antibiblicarum exercitationum, says Mill) the object of which was to destroy the credit of the original, and to support that of the vulgate, as the only complete and unerring rule of faith. Mosh. Eccl. His. 4 vol. 213, Mills Prolegm. 1318, 1326, 3d vol. Kett. Proph. 10.

* The earth is the peasantry, or vulgus hominum, together with the terrestrial creatures serving the use of man.

Mede 616.

Dr. Lancaster, says, the reason is, that in the symbolical language the natural world represents the political-the heavens, sun and luminaries represent the governing part, and consequently the earth represents the part governed, submitting and inferior.

with equal propriety, mean the lowest, meanest, and most reprobate of the people-profane-blasphemous -vicious and debased both in morals and practice, from whence it would appear, that the government intended by this prophecy, will arise from among and by means of the very dregs of the people at large, and be remarkable for its whole conduct being contrary to every other government, and partaking of the principles of the great enemy of mankind, who delights in their abasement and destruction, and for this end promotes war, confusion and bloodshed, among the inhabitants of the earth.* Quintus Curtius

The figurative language of the prophets is taken from the analogy between the world natural and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic. Accordingly the whole world natural, consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole world politic, consisting of thrones and people, or so much of it as is considered in prophecy; and the things in that world signify the analogous things in this.-For the heavens and the things therein signify, thrones and dignities, and those who enjoy them; and the earth with the things therein, the inferior people; and the lowest parts of the earth, called hades or hell, the lowest or most miserable part of them.

Sir Isaac Newton on the proph. part 1st, chap. 2d.

Since writing this, I have met with the following observation of a late writer," the beast which ascendeth out of the bottomless pit (To therion to anabainon ek tes a bussou) not* which arose, or did ascend, but which is rising out of the abyss —as if he were now rising, or was just now become a perfect tyrant, when he slew the witnesses.-The second beast is said to come up out of the earth, but this from the bottomless pit, (ek tes a bussou) from the abyss or pit, bog or whirlpool of infi

in lib. 10, art. 7, says, "There is no bottomless ocean, no vast stormy gulf or strait which rolls such tumultuous billows, as a multitude, when it abandons itself to excesses of a liberty recently acquired, and which it knows is soon to be lost."

We find in other parts of the revelations, the Turks and Saracens, those enemies of Christ and his church, are prefigured by fire, smoke and brimstone coming out of their mouths" and the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven to the earth, and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit, and he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit-and they had a king over them, who is the angel of the bottomless pit; whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue, he hath his name Apollyon," (that is, the destroyer) Rev. ixth. 11th. So here St. John represents other circumstances attending the prince of darkness and his gloomy kingdom, to ascertain and characterize the government, that is, to slay these witnesses of God.

nite depth-perhaps by the second beast coming out of the earth, is meant his tyranny being domestic and exercised rather over his own country, than over foreign nations.

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Mr Kett says, " The beast that ascendeth, that is, ascendeth or is ascending out of the bottomless pit, at the time that the witnesses are finishing their testimony"-It is abussos, that is a pit or gulph, if not bottomless, at least of an indeterminable depth. Vide Campbell on Rom. x. 6,7. prelim. Diss. 82.

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