attached to

they might remain as witnesses for him. Hence an importance, irrespective of numbers, is them in the visions of the inspired seer.

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The angel who is intrusted with the arrangements for their preservation is seen ascending from the EAST," the part of the world in which the scene is laid. And that portion of the earth has been the theatre of the most protracted and sanguinary persecutions which have ever deluged the Church. The Mohammedan empire rose into being on the blast of the fifth and sixth trumpets, which were introduced by the doleful cry of a thrice-uttered "wo to the inhabiters of the earth," and have hence received the significant appellation of the "wo trumpets." That the Saracen and Turkish powers were intended by the events of the first two of these trumpets, is a point so generally conceded, and withal so clear, that it is quite unnecessary in this connexion to enter upon a formal proof of it.-Rev. ix.

In the language of a writer who has resided long in the East,* "Christianity had ceased to exert its conservative influence, and society had become a putrid, fermenting mass, sending up a cloud of all monstrous forms of error, like the smoke out of the bottomless pit, which in time bred and sent forth the abominable doctrines of the false prophet, like locusts, unto whom was given the power of scorpions." And they had power to hurt "those men who had not the seal of God in their foreheads."

Here the sealed servants of God are first introduced,

* Rev. Eli Smith, Sermons and Addresses.

and we are left to infer that special reference was had to the rise and persecutions of the Mohammedan power in the commission of the angel to "seal the servants of our God in their foreheads." Through the long period from the rise of that power to the present day, the sealed remnant of Israel has been preserved from its desolating sway. During the continuance of the Saracen power, the Nestorian Church was widely extended through the East. The Seljukian conquerors were commissioned to kill with the sword. They swept everything before them, and all but the sealed servants of God were cut off.

If the reader will turn to the ninth chapter of the Revelation, he will be able to draw the parallel between the symbolical account there given, and the history of "those who had the seal of God in their foreheads," to whom such particular reference was made in the opening of the scene.

Having (in Rev. ix.) presented a short scenic view of the rise of Islam, the spirit of inspiration opens before us more fully the circumstances of the Church, and especially of the sealed servants of God, during the reign of this persecuting power. The tenth chapter is a solemn interlude in the great drama, in which a scene is presented that must remain unexplained till "in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, The mystery of God" shall "be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets."

The eleventh chapter must therefore be regarded as immediately connected with the ninth. Whether

the " holy city" (v. 2) denotes the literal Zion, or the Eastern Church, which was then a more numerous and important body than the Western, they are both alike trodden under foot of the Gentiles. But the more spiritual and favoured portion of the Church, represented by the "temple of God and the altar, and them that worship therein" (v. 1), were measured," and form no part of "the court which is without the temple," and "given unto the Gentiles."

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They were shielded, by having the seal of God in their foreheads, from the impending calamities which were falling so heavily upon those around them. We shall now find them acting an important part upon the stage under the designation of

THE TWO WITNESSES.-REV. XI. 3.

The servants of God, under both the old and the new dispensation, are called his witnesses. Of Israel he says, “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servants whom I have chosen," Isa. xliii. 10; "therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God," v. 12. "Ye are even my witnesses," xliv. 8. To his disciples our Saviour said, "Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”—Acts i. 8. See also ch. ii. 32; v. 32; and xiii. 31. Hence the witnesses in our text may be of the Hebrew or of the Christian Church, or of both. But in the next verse we have a more particular description of the witnesses:

"These are the two olive-trees and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth," v. 4.

This is the explanation. The witnesses are represented by the symbols of olive-trees and candlesticks: the one denoting the Jewish, the other the Christian Church, and together forming the Hebrew-Christian Church.

That the symbol of a candlestick represents the Christian Church, is placed beyond a doubt by the Divine Revelator himself, Rev. i. 20: "The seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches." And it is no less certain that the olive-tree, in other parts of the Bible, denotes the people of Israel or the Hebrew Church. Thus Jeremiah says to the Jews, "The Lord called thy name, A green olive-tree, fair, and of goodly fruit.”—Jer. xi. 16. And the apostle Paul, Rom. xi. 17, calls them "the olive-tree." Here, by way of illustration, the Gentile Church is called a wild olive-tree. But surely no one will say that the wild olive, by itself unfruitful and worthless, is what was intended in Rev. xi. 4, especially as the Gentile Church is there represented by another symbol, that of "candlestick." In a few other places the figure is used for comparison. Of Israel it is said, "His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree," Hos. xiv. 6; and the Psalmist (perhaps personifying the Jewish Church) says, "I am like a green olivetree in the house of God."-Psalm cxlii. 8.

In the book of Zechariah (ch. iv.) we find both these symbols introduced; and, if I mistake not, a careful examination of the chapter, in connexion with the preceding and subsequent ones, will show that they represent respectively the Jewish and Christian Churches; the one supplying oil to feed the light which the other was to dispense to the world. By a comparison with

Zech. iii. 8, and vi. 14, it will appear quite evident that the building of the Temple by Joshua and Zerubbabel is highly typical of the erection of the spiritual temple by the promised Messiah; for the subject is introduced in the former passage by the declaration, "Behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH,” &c.; and in the latter we are told, "Behold the man whose name is the BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord; even he shall build the temple of the Lord.”* It being thus made evident that Christ and his spiritual temple the Church were here symbolized, it is natural to suppose that "the golden candlestick with his seven lamps thereon," which is presented to the vision of the prophet (ch. iv. 2), also denotes the Church, as we have seen this figure does in other passages of Scripture. The explanation given by the angel, that "they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth” (v. 10), is somewhat obscure; but it is made plainer by a comparison with ch. iii. 9, where, immediately following the annunciation of Christ, under his name the BRANCH, we are told that "upon one stone"-" the stone which I have laid before Joshua"--" shall be seven eyes." Now this stone for the spiritual temple can be no other than "the stone which the builders refused," and which "has become the head of the corner," the foundation upon which the whole superstructure rests; and, con

* Every intelligent reader of the Bible knows that the mere artificial division into chapters does not in the least interrupt the connexion of different passages.