of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east" (Zech. 14: 3, 4); and the great day of God Almighty will end it forever.

"Forty and two months" is the holy city to be trampled; that is, three years and a half, no more, and no less. It is a literal city that is trampled and defiled; it is a literal oppression and affliction that befalls it; and so the months which compute the duration of the trouble are also literal months. These great chronological scaffoldings which men build around prophetic dates, is mere fancy-work -“wood, hay, and stubble”—nothing but rubbish and obscurations of the truth of God. When it is meant that we should take numbers and dates in some other way than as they read, He gives us intimation of it; and in the absence of such divine hints, as in this case, there is no warrant for taking them any otherwise than as they stand written. "Forty and two months" are forty and two months, and not twelve hundred and sixty years.

The computation is given in "months," which is common in the Scriptures when troubles and afflictions are the subject. The beginning and duration of the flood is expressed in months. The ark was in the country of the Philistines seven months. The locusts torment men five months. And Jerusalem's last great trial is computed in months, as well as the term of the blasphemies of the Beast.

The number of the months is forty-two-six

times the period that the ark was in captivity. Six is the number of evil, and seven of dispensa tional completion, and these are two marked factors of forty-two; which would seem to signify a fulness or completion of the evil in those months. Israel in the wilderness had forty-two stations; and the wicked youths slain by the bears for their mockery of Elisha were forty-two. The powerful monster who makes war with the saints, oppresses the nations, and blasphemes God, continues "fortytwo months." And so the completion of Jerusalem's troubles is summed up in the same numbers and computation.

But ere the forty-two months are accomplished, there are yet many other things to come to pass, among the most marked of which is that crux interpretum, or rack of expositors-the history of The Two Witnesses. But what I have to say concerning these must be reserved for another occasion, when I hope to be able to identify them and their place in history without having to hunt up the obscure Waldenses, hidden away from the world like Chammoix in the Alps, or to lodge the true cause of God on earth for a dozen centuries with so variable, roving, and revolutionary a sect as the doubtful Paulikians, from whose history scarce a page survives which a true Christian can indorse as an untarnished testimony for God. Meanwhile, may the Lord add His blessing to what has been said, and cause it to be fruitful in bringing forth praises to His holy Name!

LECTURE TWENTY-THIRD.

THE TWO WITNESSES-THEIR CONSPICUOUSNESS-THE ACCOUNT OF THEM DICTATED BY CHRIST-THEIR NUMBER-THEIR

SAINTS ENOCH AND ELIJAH ANSWER TO THE DESCRIPTIONBEINGS FROM HEAVEN HAVE COME TO EARTH AND DIEDTHE PERSONAL RETURN OF ELIJAH AFFIRMED BY MALACHI, CHRIST, THE JEWS, THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS-A TWOFOLD ELIJAH COMING-ANOTHER PROPHET TO ACCOMPANY ELIJAH -ENOCH THAT PROPHET-BOTH ARE JUDGMENT-PROPHETSTHEIR CLOTHING-HOW "THE TWO OLIVE TREES AND THE TWO LAMPS -THEIR STANDING BEFORE THE LORD OF THE EARTH.

REV. 11:3, 4. (Revised Text.) And I will give to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.

These are the two olive-trees and the two lamps, which stand before the Lord of the earth.

WHOEVER these witnesses may be, they are

the most extraordinary of whom there is any account. Many martyrs perish under the Beast (see chapters 13:15; 20:4); but none of them receive a tithe of the notice given to these two. Antichrist himself, in all his despicable preeminence and vast dominion, does not more conspicuously stand out on the record than they. Nay, in all the earth there are none to cope with him but them. He tramples the world beneath ( 178 )

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his feet, and they alone are more formidable against him than all other men besides. And this one simple fact is itself sufficient to shake and overthrow forever many of the modern attempts to identify them. The priests Ananus and Jesus at the time of Rome's siege of Jerusalem, Pope Sylvester and Mena, Francis and Dominic, John Huss and Jerome of Prague, the Waldenses and the Paulikians, in this view of the case, are not once to be thought of.

These Witnesses are not presented to John in vision. They are described to him by the glorious Angel, who is the Lord Jesus Himself. The account we have of them is not John's account, as in most other instances in this book; but it is Christ's account, given in Christ's own words. But few interpreters have remarked this, though a striking feature of the case, which shows that we here have to do with something altogether extraordinary and special.*

The narrative is also somewhat anticipative. It brings together into one compendious account the whole history, some of the details of which relate to agencies and scenes which are only afterwards described in full. The Beast who makes war with these Witnesses, and slays them, is not seen coming up till we reach the thirteenth chapter. Their career accordingly reaches into sub

* "From verse 3, to the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the matter is not exhibited in a vision, but was dictated to John by an Angel personating Christ; the observation whereof is of no small consequence."-Joseph Mede, Key of the Rev. in loc.

sequent visions, and overspans scenes and events which remain to be afterwards narrated. And the fact that the whole story of these Witnesses is presented separately from everything else, in a different manner, and somewhat in advance of some of its connections, conclusively argues a peculiarity, conspicuity, and extraordinariness in the matter, which cannot well be exaggerated.

These Witnesses are two in number-δυσὶν μάρτυσιν This duality is three times repeated, and is an essential part of the record. As stated by Alford, "no interpretation can be right which does not retain and bring out this dualism." Why two, we do not fully know. Both the law and the Gospel calls for two witnesses to establish important truth. (Deut. 17:6; Matt. 18:16.) God generally sets his heralds and witnesses in pairs, as Moses and Aaron, Caleb and Joshua, Zerubbabel and Jeshua, Peter and John, the twelve and the seventy, "two by two." And in the trying circumstances here described, two could better uphold and console each other than one, without companionship.

These witnesses are persons. Primasius says, though somewhat equivocally, "The Two Witnesses represent the Two Testaments preached by the Christian Church to the world," and Bede, and Bishop Andrews, and Melchior, and Affelman, and Croly, and Wordsworth, and some others, have taken this view. But it is altogether a mistaken view, necessitated by the embarrassment occasioned by wrong conceptions of the Apoca