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covenant-rainbow formed by the refraction of his solar light, his feet planted one on the land, the other on the sea, and his voice uttered as of a lion roaring, against all opposing enemies.' Can we conceive evidence, of the nature of allusive contrast, more extraordinary?— As to the sequel of the vision, we saw that it needed but the application of the expository principle before noted, of St. John's seeing and hearing what he did as a symbolic character, the representative of Christ's true Church, or more eminent ministers at the time figured,2-to solve all its difficulties, and trace in it, point by point, the chief successive steps and epochs of the Reformation. Just as St. John saw and hailed that vision of gospellight, so Luther (and other servants of God after him) saw and hailed the similar revelation given in their time of Christ as the Sun of Righteousness. It was the first epoch of the Reformation.3-Just as St. John heard and re-echoed the cry of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, vindicating the world to himself, and when seven extraordinary thunders, with pretensions as from heaven, sounded in answer, though at first about to receive and write them, was presently taught to view and seal them up as of no heavenly origin,-so we saw most strikingly, that after Luther had sounded forth with lion-like cry Christ's rights and claims against the opposing Romish claims preached by Tetzel, when the Papal thunders from the seven hills pealed against him, he was in the first instance prepared to receive and submit to them as a voice from heaven, but was presently taught his error, and to recognize them as the voice of Antichrist: *--this being the second epoch of the Reformation.-Just as (after an animating intimation of the time of Christ's final coming and triumph being not so very far off, an intimation realized in the prophetic views of Antichrist's near destruction next given to the Reformers 5) St. John was bidden to take the open book out of the CovenantAngel's hand, and, after eating it, afresh commissioned

1 See Vol. ii. p. 57, &c.

4 Ib. p. 114-121.

2 Ib. 112, 113.

5

3 Ib. p. 90, &c.

Apoc. x. 6; Ib. 128, &c.

to fulfil the prophet's office,-so Luther, excommunicate and degraded from holy orders by the Pope and Papal prelates, was in the Wartburg castle monished from heaven to take the Bible in hand, digest, and translate it, as the only rule for Christ's ministers and people; and then, as under a new sufficient and special commission from his Master, to fulfil (together with others similarly excommunicate and interdicted from Papal orders) the functions of reformed preacher and evangelist.'-Just as St. John had next a rod, the emblem of princely or ecclesiastical authority, given him, with command to rise and measure (or define) the mystical Apocalyptic Temple, and at the same time authoritatively to eject as heathen certain occupants of the outer court (together with the outer court itself) who, it was added, had been for some time before trampling down the Holy City, or Polity of the saints, so we saw that, as the next step in the history of the Reformation, the rod of authority was, in Saxony, Hesse, Brandenburgh, and other kingdoms, given into the hand of Luther and other anti-Papal ministers, with a view to the definition and constitution of Christ's orthodox Church, -its re-formation in fact, and the casting out from its pale of the Papists and their religious system, as antichristian and heathenish.2-Once more, just as St. John's attention was next directed to the history of the two Witnesses, retrospectively narrated by the Covenant-Angel, as of those that had borne commission to testify for Him through the darkness and dangers of the 1260 predestined days (or years) of Gentile domination, -so, very quickly after the regular ecclesiastical constitution of the Reformed Church, its doctors and ministers were directed to explore, and at length to set forth in writing the history of a line of witnesses for Christ, from the early commencement of the apostacy, through all the dark succeeding ages of the domination of the Papal Antichrist.3

1

1 Ib. 165, &c.

2 Ib. 183, &c.

3 Ib. 194-196.

As to the fact of such a witness-line having existed, the evidence in proof, which detained us for a length of time, appeared sufficient; though for the earlier centuries not perfect, or without lacunæ.' And on the rest of their history, figuratively given in the Angel's narrative, -viz. with respect to the Beast from the abyss (an antichristian enemy now first spoken of) making war upon the two symbolic Witnesses, so soon as they should have completed their testimony, and conquering, and at length killing them, and amidst a gathered concourse of its partizans triumphing over their dead corpses, and then, in just three and a half days after this, their reviving to the enemy's dismay in strength and vigour greater than before,-on all these points, turning to our line of actual evangelic witnesses, we found the historic parallel complete even to the minutest accuracy: persecuted as it appeared they were by the Popes, whom that Beast from the abyss (it was afterwards shown) figured, so soon as they had completed their protesta. tion by denouncing Rome as Antichrist, and at length exterminated or reduced to silence ;-of which last fact evidence having appeared at a very notable and well-defined epoch, the victory was then forthwith proclaimed and rejoiced over: viz. in the conclave of the celebrated 5th Lateran Council at Rome; precisely three and a half years, even to a day, before Luther's protest, and the ever-memorable outbreaking again of anti-Papal witnessing at the REFORMATION.3

At this point the Angel's retrospective narrative having been brought down so far, as to blend both in time and subject with that of his own previous figurative descent, revelation of Himself the Saviour, exposure of Rome's seven mock thunders, re-commissioning of the apostle John in his symbolic character to the prophetic office, and direction of his regard to the subject of the Witnesses, the course of emblematic figurations was resumed. And whereas the resumed vision, combining

1 Ib. 209, &c.

VOL. IV.

2 Ib. 373-375.

4 Ib. 407, &c.

C

3 Ib. 403.

the two subjects, did next represent the two revived witnesses as summoned to rise up, in the cloud which formed the Angel's mantling, to the firmamental heaven of vision, and thereupon an earthquake occurring. and a tenth of that great city falling by it wherein the witnesses had been slain, and seven chiliads also being destroyed, apparently of the same great city,—so we saw, in the history of the times of the Reformation, that its next marked step of progress was in the ascent of the PROTESTANTS, (or, according to the word Protestant's etymological meaning, of anti-Papal WITNESSES,) to power and dignity in the political heavens of Western Christendom; alike in Saxony, Hesse, Prussia, England: -connected with which last event was the Revolution in which Papal England, the tenth kingdom of the Popedom, fell; followed by the loss to the Popedom of the seven Dutch United Provinces, presently after also: each state an ancient European tribual subdivision, analogous to the Jewish Chiliad.2

A chronological note was added at this close of the vision; "The second woe hath passed away behold the third woe cometh quickly." Just agreeably with which it appeared that the earthquake of the Reformation, and wars which rose out of it, did not end, nor the consolidation of the Reformation become complete, in Germany, Holland, and England, till the Peace of Westphalia, A.D. 1648, and accession of William the Third, A.D. 1688, to the English throne:-an æra immediately preceding those defeats of the Turks by Prince Eugene, after which they were never more a terror or woe to Christendom.3-By this chronological Note the conclusion of this division of the prophecy was distinctly defined, and its evidence too made complete. Nor, on reviewing the latter as a whole, do I fear that it will seem presumption if I confidently ask the reader, Is it possible that in our application of the prophecies so reviewed to the Reformation, (the chief subject of our second Volume,) we can have been mistaken?

1 Ib. 410, &c.

2

Ib. p. 418, &c.

Ib. 432, 433.

1

And so we were brought to the FOURTH PART of the prophecy that whereof the great subject was the BEAST FROM THE ABYSS; the same that had slain Christ's two Witnesses.-The Apocalyptic series of prefigurative visions, thus far (as explained by me) continuous, was broken off abruptly, we saw, to introduce it: immediately after a passing mention of the seventh Trumpet's sounding on the scene of vision, and a certain significant opening of the temple-gate, and also certain attendant thunderings, lightnings, and voices, which together gave no equivocal anticipatory indication of what that Trumpet would include; viz. destruction to Christ's enemies, and triumph to his Church. And in the supplemental Part now begun, containing the Beast's history, we saw evidence of chronological parallelism with the two Parts preceding, (especially from its including the same notable period of the 1260 days, or years, previously mentioned,) such as could not be mistaken: the which structure of the prophecy in two parallel lines would, it seemed, most exactly suit the form of the scroll whereon the prophecy was written, by supposing the former series of visions, with their sequel, to have been written on its one side, the present series on its other; agreeably with the specification, otherwise almost meaningless, of the sevensealed scroll being written both within and without."

As to the seven-headed ten-horned Beast itself, or rather that which the Angel (by a common figure) used as its equivalent, and chiefly or altogether regarded in his description, I mean its eighth or last ruling head,3—the fact of its symbolizing the line of ROMAN POPES, from soon after the rise of the Romano-Gothic kingdoms of the 5th and 6th centuries, appeared on the following evidence :- 1st. Their throne was locally the seven-hilled city; so as was the Beast's.+-2nd. Their supremacy, like the Beast's, was chronologically the eighth regularly

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3 Apoc. xvii. 11; "The Wild Beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth." It is the figure of putting the head for the whole body: so as in Dan. ii. 38, Nebuchadnezzar is put for the Babylonian empire which he directed.

See Vol. iii. p. 95.

4 Apoc. xvii. 9.

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