to take place in the church, and world, are
represented as _antecedent_ to Christ's reign on earth, and
terminating _before_ the commencement of that blessed era.

It is farther to be observed that during the whole antichristian
defection, God's "two witnesses were to prophecy clothed in
sackcloth." God would have a small, but sufficient number of faithful
servants, who, in low and humble circumstances, would maintain the
truth and be witnesses for him during the reign of man of sin. But
about the end of his reign, they will have finished their testimony.
Their enemies will then prevail against them and destroy them, and for
a short term there will be none to stand up for God +--none to warn
the wicked, or to disturb them in their chosen ways. And they are
represented as exulting in their deliverance from the society of those
who amidst their departures from the living God, had tormented them,++
by warnings of future wrath, and an eternity according to their works.
For this is the way in which God's witnesses torment the wicked.

* * * *

+ Comparatively None. The number will be exceedingly small--the times
resemble those just before the flood, when Noah was said to stand
alone. The pageantry of Romish worship may be kept up in that church,
till mystical Babylon shall be destroyed, in the awful manner foretold
in the Revelation; but infidelity hath long since, tipped the
foundation of catholic religion, being grafted on the ruins of
superstition. The absurd doctrines, and legendary tales of popery, may
have been credited in the dark ages, when many of the clergy were
unable to write their names, or so much as read their alphabet; but
the belief of them is utterly inconsistent with the light everywhere
diffused since the revival of literature.

++ Tormented them. This language is remarkable. It intimates that the
pains occasioned in the wicked, by the warnings of the faithful are
the same, in kind, as those of the damned, and that they are often
severe. This accounts for the mad joy of infidelity--for the frantic
triumphs of those who have persuaded themselves that religion is a
fable. It accounts for the representation here given of the conduct of
an unbelieving world, when infidelity shall have become universal, and
the dead body of religion lie exposed to public scorn. Such is the
time here foretold--a time when the age of atheism may be vauntingly
termed "the age of reason."

* * * * *

God's witnesses testi