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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 11

Section 2-3 Subsection 1

"Their Days of the Prophecy"


 
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In the sixth verse of the chapter are the words, en hemerais auton tes propheteias, about which "the recent editors" are at variance with their predecessors. They recommend that it be changed, and translated, "during the days of their prophesying." But, with all due respect to their recencies, I suggest that the words be let alone, and translated, "in their days of the prophecy."

The whole apocalypse is "the prophecy;" for so it is termed in ch. i. 3. But the days in which the witnesses stand bearing testimony against "the God of the Earth," do not extend through all the days of the prophecy. The God of the earth was undeveloped in all those days of the prophecy extending from John’s location in Patmos to the birth of the Catholic Woman’s Man-Child. In all this time, therefore, the witnesses could not stand before him; and, consequently, these years were no part of "their days." And from the finishing of their testimony to their resurrection and ascension, was over two hundred years. These, therefore, were no part of "their days," unless a man can be said to stand in the presence of another, and testify against him while he is dead. It must be evident, then, that the days of the prophecy are of much longer measure than the days of the witnessing against the Antichrist. These days are the 1260, and therefore they are emphatically and specially "their days" the portion of time appropriated to the One Body and its Helper, to contend earnestly for the "one Lord, one faith, and one immersion;" and to testify against the Vice-Christ and his idolatrous institutions.

And these "their days" neither begin nor end with the days of the prophecy. They began, as I have shown, in the three years’ epoch of A.D. 312-316, and would consequently end A.D. 1572-76; because 1260 + 316 = 1576. Thus, their sackcloth-witnessing had its beginning and ending, long before the deliverance of the Holy City from its "forty and two months" of subjection to the Gentile governments The Holy City still exists under Protestant ascendancy, in the lowest stratum of the abyss -- trampled in the dust; but it is nowhere to be found under Catholic ascendancy, witnessing against the Antichrist, and tormenting him and his adherents with their testimony. In all catholic countries the saints have been "prevailed against;" and, though existing in Britain and America to a very limited extent, their witnessing for the truth as originally proclaimed by the apostles, and their testifying against "the spirituals of the wickedness in" protestant and catholic "high places," and their gospel-nullifying traditions and institutions, command but little attention. Sceptical indifference, and profane contempt for "the testimony of Jesus Christ," are the characteristic of the times in which we live. The Holy City has but few citizens left, whose voice is overpowered in the unintelligible babble and confusion of the Great City. They testify, nevertheless, as this exposition of the apocalypse evinces; but their witnessing is not "in sackcloth." Since their ascension, their enemies have been restrained from the use of the whips, and chains, and fire, and faggot. These, which used to be the most powerful arguments against which they had to contend, have been wrested from their destroyers by "the Earth;" so that now they can advocate the truth, and testify against the apostasy, none daring, however willing, to make them afraid.

Now, the "forty and two months," measure of the Holy City is bounded by two events -- the giving of the saints into the hand of the Little Horn of the West, for its beginning; and the resurrection, for its ending: so also, the days of its sackcloth-witnessing are placed between the flight of the Woman, for their commencement; and the finishing of her testimony, for their termination. We find this ending indicated in the seventh verse, as, "when they may have finished their testimony, the beast which ascendeth out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them, and put them to death." The beast herein referred to, is that which John saw arise, and describes in chap. xiii. 1-7. As John saw it arise, it was not extant in his day, but appeared afterwards. It was a new development of powers upon the same territory as that upon which Daniel beheld his fourth beast. It was the ten horns and little horn of this in middle-age manifestation -- the Civil and Ecclesiastical Polity of the Gentiles who trampled the Holy City. The Mouth of this beast represents the same power as the Eyes and Mouth of Daniel’s Little Horn. John says, that the beast’s Mouth made war with the saints, and overcame them; and Daniel says, "the little Horn made war upon the saints, and prevailed against them;" by which, John and Daniel identified the Horn and mouth as symbolical of the same power.

With such testimony as this before us, we ought to find 1260 years after the Donatist trials in the presence of the Woman’s Imperial Man-Child, a people specially obnoxious to the ecclesiastical and civil authorities of the nations with whom they were at war, for the purpose of putting them to silence, and suppressing their principles, by the advocacy of which they were "tormented." We ought to find, too, that the conflict of this people with the powers was not only unsuccessful, but that it resulted in the death of the cause of civil and religious freedom, and the rights of man, in all the countries of the beast. We are however, not to suppose that they were not made war upon before the end of the 1260 years; I have shown before that there were frequent wars, in which they smote the earth with plagues as often as they willed. But, this at the end of "their days of the prophecy" was a special war, resulting as no previous wars had hitherto done, namely, the putting of them to death in the symbolic sense of the prophecy.

This war was to supervene upon their finishing their testimony hotan telesosi, "when they may have finished their testimony" for Jesus Christ, and against the Antichrist. The testimony concerning the faith was silenced first; afterwards, that against the Antichrist, and for civil and religious freedom. "The Earth" maintained the conflict longest, having been energized by the accession of new life from the antipapal rebellion of the Lutherans and Calvinists. These not being of the Holy City, but advocates of a reformed national system of religion, were prepared to draw the sword against the papal powers with potent, though not universally subversive results. After a lapse of twelve hundred years, these sturdy combatants arose to disturb the peace, in which the worshippers of the Roman God were glorifying themselves greatly. They fought valiantly, but did not conquer: and, though in Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Britain, they established governments independent of "the God of the earth;" yet, in all the Breadth of the Great City -- epi tes plateias poleos tes megales, which is allegorically styled Sodom and Egypt, -- in Rome, Italy, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, the Austrian states and Poland, "the witnesses were overcome and put to death."

In the year 1530, the witnesses had been entirely employed in paving the way for union with the German reformers. Those of them residing in the South of France, did not encounter the enemy with their usual fortitude. They shrunk from the cross, and fell into the practice of feigning acquiescence with the national forms of worship. In the middle of this century also those of them residing in Calabria, coalesced with the presbyterian church under the pastoral care of the celebrated John Calvin and Theodore Beza at Geneva. The consequence of this was, that several presbyterian ministers of their school settled among the witnesses of Calabria, as pastors of their churches. This was their situation in A.D. 1560. The Calvinists and Lutherans, both princes and divines, claimed fellowship with them; and the claim was unscripturally allowed: for, while Swiss and German Protestantism in those days, was a powerful antagonism to popery, it had no affinity in faith and practice to the ancient apostolic religion, of the primitive age. It is an unbaptized speculation, which no true Christadelphian, or Brother of Christ, can fellowship without incurring the crime of apostasy from the faith. This was the position of the witnessing prophets in A.D. 1576. "Their testimony," with which for 1260 years they had tormented their adversaries, "was finished." "Their days of prophecy" were now expired. They could no longer teach others "the great salvation" by which they might escape the guilt and condemnation of sin unto eternal life in the kingdom of the Deity; and as for protesting against "the God of the earth," the Lutheran and Calvinistic antipapists, with whom they had fraternized, were effective enough for that.

Thus, then, having finished their testimony, the impending sentence of conquest and death was about to burst upon them in a dreadful storm of massacre and desolation. Exactly 1260 years from the birth of the Imperial Man-Child of Sin (who, they testified had no more to do with the church, than christians with kings, or their bishops with courts); that is, in the year 1572, the first of a terminal epoch of four years, a dreadful calamity befel them in Paris and other cities of France. This was the celebrated papal massacre of "St. Bartholomew’s Day," as the 24th of August is termed by the worshippers of the saints. The murderers ravaged the whole city, and in three days butchered above ten thousand lords, gentlemen, presidents, and people of all ranks. From Paris the massacre spread throughout the whole of France. According to Thuanus, 30,000 persons were destroyed in this massacre; or, as others affirm, 100,000. This was a notable beginning of that war which "the beast ascending out of the abyss" was to wage against them. It burst forth upon them most unexpectedly in that section of the plateia, or breadth, of the Great City, styled in the thirteenth verse, to dekaton, the tenth -- one of the Ten-Horn-Kingdoms of the Beast.

I must leave to history the narration of the details of the events of this war between the beast and the witnesses. It will be sufficient to remark that, in the course of it, Richelieu, the cardinal premier of France, was convinced that either the antipapists must be admitted to the full enjoyment of unlimited liberty, and of all the privileges of the state, uncontrolled by catholics, and even at the hazard of the permanent establishment of the catholic faith, or that they must be totally subdued. He preferred the latter; and to accomplish it, turned the whole power of France against them; and succeeded in totally disarming them, leaving them, however, in possession of considerable privileges, civil and religious, guaranteed to them by the Edict of Nantes.

In this Tenth of the Papal Breadth they still amounted to over 1,500,000; many of them wealthy merchants, skilful manufacturers, able sailors and soldiers. The question with the Antichrist and his "eldest son" Louis XIV, was, should such a sect be permitted to exist; and whether their power was not now able to subdue it, and extirpate the heresy? The king believed that God had raised him up and prospered him for this very thing. The season seemed to them favorable. There was none of the European States that could protect them. England was weakened by its own discontents. The Emperor of the West was engaged in a war with Turkey. Spain was unable to contend with France. Other states were awed by her power, and however willing to support the Huguenots, dared not to provoke so mighty and unrelenting a foe as the GRAND MONARQUE. He was therefore free to essay their conversion to Romish idolatry, or to exterminate them from his kingdom. He accordingly began this great work of putting to death the witnesses by revoking the Edict of Nantes granted by Henry IV, April 1, 1598. The revocation was decreed October 23, 1685. It provided, that all their churches should be forthwith demolished; that there should be no meeting for religious worship in any place, on any pretence; that every kind of religious exercise in the houses or castles of nobility or gentry should be punished with death and confiscation of property; that all non-catholic ministers should leave the kingdom in fifteen days, or embrace the catholic religion; that all their schools should be absolutely shut up; that their children should be "baptized" by the curates of the parish in which the parents resided, on pain of 500 livres; and that every one attempting to leave the kingdom should be condemned to the galleys or death but, that all who were not decided, or not prepared to declare themselves, until it pleased God to enlighten them, might remain where they resided, continue their trades or arts, and enjoy their property undisturbed, provided they refrained from all exercises of their religion, and from every kind of meeting on that account. This was putting them to silence, or killing them as witnesses against Romish idolatry. So long as their mouths were closed they were unable to testify; so that as witnesses they were literally dead, though not therefore buried.

The execution of this decree was terrible, and its consequences most deplorable. Many were cruelly tortured and put to death; many were imprisoned or sent to the galleys; dragoons, "the basest troops of the kingdom, fellows that would stick at nothing," were quartered upon them, who insulted and pillaged them, in order to force them to change their religion. Terror and dread marched before them, and the cruelties of 1572 were enacted over again. "Die or be catholics!" was the war-cry of these savages who executed the behests of the Little Horn. M. Claude, in his "Short Account," published in 1686, says: "Amidst a thousand hideous lamentations and horrid blasphemies, they hung men and women by the hair of their heads, or by the feet, to the roofs of their chambers; or to the racks in the chimneys, and there smoked them with wisps of wet hay, till they were no longer able to bear it; and when they took them down, if they would not sign, they immediately hung them up again. They plucked off the hair of their heads and beards with pincers, till they left none remaining.

"They threw them on great fires kindled on purpose, and did not pull them out till they were half roasted. They plunged them again and again into wells, from whence they would not take them up till they had promised to renounce their religion. They bound them as they do criminals put to the rack, and in this posture, with a funnel poured wine down their throats, till the fumes of it depriving them of reason, they were made to say they were catholics. They stripped them naked, and after having offered them a thousand indignities, they stuck them all over with pins. They lanced them with penknives, and sometimes with red hot pincers took them by the nose, and so dragged them about the room till they promised to turn catholics. They bastinadoed them most cruelly, and then dragged them thus bruised to the churches, where this forced appearance was accounted abjuration. They kept them from sleeping seven or eight days together; they tormented them in a thousand ways. They tied them to bed posts, and ravished their wives and daughters before their eyes. They plucked off the nails from the fingers and toes of some; and blew both men and women up with bellows till they were ready to burst."

Such were the infamous dragoonings by which the Earth was subdued and silenced by the beast of the abyss. A million of them are said to have emigrated into other countries; and to have carried with them two hundred millions of money, besides their skill in arts and manufactures. The flame was smothered, but the embers remained, yet again to be fanned into a terrible and consuming conflagration. But for the present they were prostrated, as "corpses upon the breadth of the Great City spiritually styled Sodom and Egypt."

Such, then, was the war by which they were overcome and put to death. It continued with intermissions during a period of a hundred and thirteen years from A.D. 1572. But although their testimony was silenced, and they were as dead "among the peoples, and tribes, and tongues, and nations," upon which the Great Harlot sits in reeling instability, "drunk with the blood of the saints AND with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus" -- their inanimate polities did not suffer dissolution. Their corpses remained entire. Communities of them still were seen in "the breadth of the Great City" awaiting "spirit of life from the Deity" to break in upon them for their resuscitation.
 
 

 

 

 

 


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