Lords and masters of our faith and morals." The great offence Luther gave, was his foundation doctrine; when he laid it down as an unshaken maxim, that the sacred Scriptures are the sole foundation of all doctrine; and that all human opinions are to be brought to them as the touchstone. Under this view of the Church and its apostasy, no one who has considered the importance of the word of God, as contained in the Scriptures of the old and new Testaments, and the advantage derived from the intelligent and faithful preaching of it to the people at large, both as to faith and morals, with the blessing that the Sabbath and Lord's day has always been to the Church of Christ, under every dispensation, will hesitate to say, that these witnesses of Jehovah have literally been prophesying in sackloth. THE GOVERNMENT, DESCRIBED BY "THE BEAST ARISING OUT OF THE BOTTOMLESS PIT," (OR ABYSS,) WHICH WILL ASCERTAIN THE APPROACH OF THE TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF THE MAN OF SIN AND ANTICHRIST, OR THE ENDING OF THE 1260 YEARS, WHEN THE WIT NESSES WILL BE ABOUT TO FINISH THEIR TESTIMONY. WHENEVER the government shall arise, described in this chapter, as that of the beast arising out of the bottomless pit, or abyss, who is to make war with and destroy these witnesses of God, then the time when the witnesses will be about to finish their prophesy; and of consequence the time of the ending of the second woe, which all synchronize, will probably be ascertained with more precision than by any other past events, and thereby the wise will begin to understand, though the wicked shall continue to do foolishly. This mode of writing and speaking in figures, (as has been already noticed) was not only common among the eastern nations, so as to be adopted as a usual mode of instruction in both religious and political truths, but it became necessary, in all cases, where the world at large were to be informed, as answering the purpose of an universal language. Indeed this mode of instruction was adopted, not only by the ministers of religion, but by philosophers, politicians, Jews, and Gentiles, Christians, and Pagans. This was more necessary, as the knowledge of letters and of writing was so rare, and, by this means, it became as intelligible to the people of that day, as our mode of de nominating the weight of any thing by numeral letters, as 112 lbs. is to us at this day. Powers and states, in the early times of antiquity, were designated and known by their symbols; and, in after ages, came to be distinguished by writers under the names of such symbols, as well as by their proper appellations. As the lion with eagle's wings, signified the strength of the Assyrian empire, and the celerity of its conquests. The beast, with three ribs in his mouth, intimated the reduction which Cyrus made of Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt, to the Persian monarchy. The leopard, with four heads and four wings, denoted Alexander and his four successors; and the beast, with ten horns and iron feet, represented the Roman empire and its divisions into ten kingdoms, or principalities. This was a language as well known to skilful readers at that time, as now the arms, colours, fields of escutcheons, are to heralds.* Hence we hear of the ancient philosophers so often teaching by means of fables. Persia was as well known by the ram, it being the royal ensign; Macedon by the goat, since king Carinus, as Great Britain is by a lion and unicorn; the emperor by a spread eagle with two heads; or the United States of America, by the bald eagle with thirteen bars. The sacred Scriptures, of both the Old and New Testaments, are full of instances to our purpose. Therein it is a common thing to designate governments, tribes, and families, by beasts or animals. The political states, nobility, and officers of government, were known by the Heavens, the Mountains, the Sun, Moon, and Stars. The common people, in their different grades, by the * Stackhouse Hist. Bib. 4 vol. 289. U u Earth, the Sea, the Abyss, &c. The change of gov. ernments, or revolutions and destruction of their constitutions or forms; by the dissolution of the Heavens, and the host thereof the rolling of the Heavens together as a scrowl-earthquakes and tumultuous motion or roaring of the seas. The whole government of the Hebrews is often designated by the four standards of Israel, as in Ezek. 1st ch. 10th v. by a man, a lion, an eagle, and an ox. Judah is denominated by Jacob, on his dying bed, a lion's whelp; and Issachar by a strong ass; Dan by a serpent; Napthali as a hind let loose, and Benjamin by a ravening wolf.* In Isaiah, 27th ch. 1st v. Egypt is called Leviathan, or the crooked serpent, and the dragon that is in the sea. Daniel denominates the four monarchies of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, by a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a beast dreadful and terrible, with great iron teeth, divers from all other beasts, having ten horns.† A horn is always the emblem of power. St. John, in the Revelations, continually uses these figures to point out particular governments, especially the Roman empire, in its Pagan state, by the great red dragon. When the prophet Jeremiah was desirous of warning the Jewish nation of the successful approach of the Babylonians, to destroy their government and nation, he says, "I beheld the earth, and lo! it was without form and void and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo! they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly." So Joel, speaking of the same event, "the earth shall quake before them-the heavens shall * Vid. 49 ch. Gen. † Dan. 7 ch. 4 to 7. v. Isaiah, 4 ch. 23 v. tremble the sun and moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. In like manner Haggai, when foretelling the subversion of the Jewish polity, says, "speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying I will shake the heavens and the earth-I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms." And again-" For thus saith the Lord of hosts, yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land-and I will shake all nations." And again, in Isaiah, "behold! the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it; for the stars of heaven, and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine." The learned and excellent Sir Isaac Newton, in his treatise on the prophesies, says, "The figurative language of the prophets, is taken from the analogy be tween 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 prophesy; 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 and most miserable part of them. Great earthquakes, and the shaking of heaven and earth, are put for * Joel, 2d ch. 10 v. † Haggai, 2d ch. 21 v. |