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(When they shall have finished their tes'timony, the beast that ascendeth out of ' the bottomless pit shall make war against ' them, and shall overcome them and kill 'them, and their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spi' ritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where 'also our Lord was crucified. And they ' of the people, and kindreds, 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,)' have been found by expositors more difficult to explain than any other part of the book of Revelation. But, if close attentention is paid to the figurative style of the Hebrew writers, with the true import of what they mean to reveal, there will be no such great difficulty in finding the true meaning of the Holy Spirit in these verses as may be at first supposed. In the first place, it is obvious, when the Hebrew writers have any thing very important to announce, they generally state it in two, three, and sometimes four, different forms, not only to ascertain its certainty, but by correcting one part by the other, to elucidate and clearly comprehend the whole. Thus the three different dates mentioned in this chapter, 42 months, 1260 days, or three days and a half, the same as time, times, and half a time, all mean the same space of time in which the witnesses prophesied in sackcloth, and in many respects were literally slain. The expression in the 7th verse, 'When they shall have finished ' their testimony,' ought to be rendered ' while they are fulfilling their testimony;' which every person conversant in the Greek language will find to be correct *. Thus these faithful witnesses, while delivering their testimony, shall be silenced, forbid to be read, or consulted (as has been already shewn), by the Roman pontiffs and anti-christian clergy, but particularly slain by the impostor Mahomet, who substituted the Koran instead of the Bible; the one know where this great city is, where the witnesses were slain? but why not take the apostle's simple account of it? Spiritual Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Jerusalem to be sure. Is not that city spiritually called Sodom, &c., by most of the prophets? and where else was our Lord crucified? Had the apostle named the city, called it the capital of Judea, where David and Solomon reigned, he could not more pointedly have described it than he has done. Let this city be where it may, it detracts nothing from the witnesses being the Old and New Testament. Expositors will have it to be Rome, because so many of the saints were slain there; it may be so, but since the reign of antichrist ten times the number have been slain in other cities, than have suffered at Rome. But admit the hypothesis, that the apostle meant the Old and New Testament to be God's own witnesses, and it will clearly appear they were completely silenced, or figuratively slain, at Jerusalem. Hear again what the historian says on this subject

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now reigning in the highest esteem, where the other (still silenced) once flourished and prophesied in its pure and primitive simplicity; now politically dead, it is true, but not yet buried, but that it may soon arise, and speak the truth of God freely. Slain also by the Council of Trent, on the 8th April, 1546, which forbid the Scriptures to be read, or translated from the original Hebrew and Greek, into the language of any country. Pictavius, one of the bishops, declared, in the name of the whole, that the Bible was an empty and dumb thing, a mere carcass, that had no life in it of itself. Is not this something like slaying? The Rev. J. Brightman, who wrote near 200 years ago, and agrees with me, that the Old and New Testament are the witnesses, says, on this occasion, 'Their bodies thus thrust through, were cast into the street of the great city, a spectacle to all men, and a triumph to ' the beast of Rome.' The Bible an unburied body, visible it is true, but without the gift of speech.

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about the beginning of the seventh century, nearly 1200 years ago. 'Now God was preparing a scourge, whose heavy hand to this day continues to be felt, and ' whose tyranny has nearly extinguished ' the Christian name, from the Pillars of Hercules, to the remotest east; where 'Mahometan darkness covers the earth, ' and its gross darkness the people. In 'the country where first the Lord of Life

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and Glory drew his breath, and all the scenes of labours and sufferings of the • first apostles were displayed; in those flourishing churches through Asia and Greece, to which most of the sacred epistles are directed, there at present the 'abominations of the impostor and false

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prophet Mahomet, are seen standing in ' the holy places, and the crescent has sup

planted the cross.*"-Is not this slaying the witnesses to some purpose? and at Jerusalem too? Perhaps three or four motheaten copies of the Bible may be found

* Haweis' Church History, vol. ii. p. 54.