visitations of Saxons and Lombards, Saracens and Seljukian Turks, that scourged the witness-rejecting christian world, through the earlier half of the 1260 days. Again, the saying of Archbishop Peckham respecting England in the xivth century,' was notoriously applicable to the state of all Western Christendom throughout the five earlier centuries that we have passed in review: viz. that the general spiritual destitution was such, that the people might be resembled to poor and needy ones, that sought water and found none. And since on the scale of Christendom, even as of individuals, that general rule of God's moral government could not but be fulfilled, "Whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath," we may surely view this too as a judicial infliction on it, for its rejection of the witness borne to the truth, the light offered.-As to that further particular noted of the Apocalyptic Witnesses' avenging power, I mean of "fire going out of their mouth to consume their adversaries," its fulfilment in regard of the Paulikians and Waldenses, (if I have rightly characterized them,) though future remains yet, as I conceive, still sure.2 For doubtless in such case their words must have taken hold of their wilful adversaries,3 even as Jeremiah's words of fire of the Jews of his time, or the apostles' of those who rejected theirs, to condemn and consume them at the last.-How striking, how pointed the antithesis in this intimation about them (I cannot but note it ere concluding) to the language of the

hurt and murder them. Therefore they must have such as bereave them of body, soul, wealth, and honour. Oh right! right!"-And again; "Huss's death was revenged. After it the Emperor Sigismund had strange and sudden misfortunes, being always afterwards beaten by the Turks, over whom he had before continual victories."-Ibid.

1 See p. 159 suprà.-The same spiritual drought, and famine of hearing God's word, is spoken of by a Greek monk as characterizing the state of his country, not very long after the taking of Jerusalem by the Saracens ; i. e. nearly about the time of the rise of the Paulikian sect, and early in the 1260 years period, Bib. Patr. Paris Ed. in four Volumes, i. 1021. And similar remarks respecting other parts of the period under review might easily be added, in exemplification. 2 See p. 204 suprà.

3 I say wilful, because many doubtless of their enemies were unintentionally misled by false reports respecting them, totally to misjudge their true character. 4 Matt. x. 14, 15.

Usurper Antichrist! "We shut heaven against them," was his cry. "We send upon them famine and thirst, and drought; and call fire from heaven to consume and devour them."1 Such was the Papal language of curse against these heretics, as he termed them; though in reality Witnesses for Jesus. But "These have power to shut heaven," said Christ, "during the days of their prophecy; these to smite the antichristian Roman earth with every plague. Thus, as Luther once said, in a passage already before quoted by me,2 "Did Christ judge between them, whose excommunication and curse, his or theirs, should stand."

So concludes my historical view of Christ's Witnesses, as reaching to the times of Peter Valdes and his first Waldensian associates, or end of the xiith century. It was very much the same that presented itself to Flacius, and Bale, and Foxe, and the other Martyrologists among the early Reformers; as they looked back from their point of observation to the earlier centuries, in which Witnesses clothed in sackcloth had to bear testimony for Christ's cause and truth.-Nor indeed did their retrospective view of the history, as Apocalyptically prefigured, here terminate. But I think it well to pause awhile for the present; because that there here begins the notable æra of the Beast from the abyss, or Papal power, taking up the sword, and commencing war, in all the plenitude of its force and fury, against these Witnesses for the Lord Jesus. It is an æra strongly marked both in the apocalyptic prediction and in history. And of it, and its memorable results, it seems desirable to treat in a separate Chapter.

1 So in the Papal Form of Excommunication given in Martene de Rit. ii. 324; "Sicut Dominus B. Petro ejusque successoribus, cujus vicem tenemus, potestatem dedit ut quodcumque ligarent, &c,-ita illis cælum claudimus:-et percutiat eos Dominus fame et siti donec deficiant ;-et cùm Diabolo et angelis ejus perpetuis ignibus tradantur," &c. 2 P. 193 suprà.

CHAPTER VIII.

RETROSPECTIVE VIEW, AS CONTINUED FROM THE REFORMATION, OF THE PAPAL WILD BEAST'S WAR AGAINST CHRIST'S WITNESSES, THEIR

DEFEAT, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION.

"And when they shall have completed1 their testimony, the Wild Beast that is to ascend out of the abyss shall make war against them.-And he shall overcome them, and shall kill them.-And their dead bodies shall lie in the broad place3 of the great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord1 was crucified. And they from the people and kindred and tongues and nations, shall see their dead bodies three days and a half; and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and send gifts one to another: because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth.-And after the three days and a half the spirit of life from God entered into them and they stood upon their feet. And great fear fell upon them that beheld them." Apoc. xi. 7—12.

:

There is no indication as yet of change of the speaker, or interruption of the narrative begun by him in the preceding verses. Thus the Lord Jesus, symbolically represented a little before as descending with life-giving lustre on the Roman earth, in prefiguration of the burst of gospel-light vouchsafed by Him at the Reformation,

1 όταν τελεσωσι. In the authorized version it is, "When they shall have finished." The reason and meaning of the alteration will be given presently. 2 These two words are supplied in the authorised translation. 3 Пλатela, remarked on afterwards.

4 So Griesbach's and Tregelles' text; 8 kupios avтwv, their Lord; instead of the received reading, δ κυριος ἡμων, our Lord."

5 This instead of," they of the people," &c.; the original being, ek twv λawv, &c. 6 The definite article is in the orignal, μετα τας τρεις ημερας.