ects, hence were representing to the world
the beast power instead of the true church. Thus, during the Protestant
period, the church of God, _in its organic form_, was not represented
anywhere on earth; for its members were scattered among those who were
"worshiping the beast and his image." Hence the two witnesses, during
this era, had no place to operate in their official capacity as the
Governors of God's church and are therefore represented as slain. The
government of Protestant sects is not effected by the Word and Spirit;
for the institutions themselves are of human origin, and men are their
law-makers and governors.

When the two witnesses are deprived of their governing power and the
rules and disciplines of men substituted in their place, a decline into
worldliness is the invariable result. This has been the case repeatedly
in sectarianism. In fact, Protestantism, as a component part of that
great city Babylon, has so given herself over to "revellings,
banquetings, and abominable idolatries," that a voice from heaven has
declared her to be "the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul
spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Chap. 18:2.
Witness the shows, festivals, frolics, grab-bag parties, kissing bees,
cake-walk lotteries, and other abominations unnumbered, that are carried
on without shame, under the guise of religion, in the high places of
this modern Babylon! If the Word of God with the full power and
authority of his Spirit could be turned in upon them, it would be like
the torment of fire; but no, it is dead to them, and they rejoice and
make merry and continue in "the same excess of riot."

In the description before us, this city of sectarianism in which the two
witnesses are slain is "spiritually [or mystically] called Sodom and
Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." It is a mystical Sodom, Egypt
and Jerusalem--a Sodom for wickedness and lewdness, an Egypt for the
captivity and oppression of God's people, and a Jerusalem for the
crucifying of the Son of God afresh and putting him to an open shame.
Thus, this city mystically combines the wickedness of the three most
wicked places on earth--Sodom, Egypt, and Jerusalem. These facts we
shall notice more particularly hereafter.

But these two witnesses were not always to remain trampled under foot in
the streets of great Babylon; for a time came when "the spirit of life
from God entered into them, and they stood upon their fee