their consciences and disturb their sinful
repose. The fires of persecution are again kindled, and the witnesses
are subjected to the anathemas of the church and the sword of the civil
magistrate,--the cruelty of the two beasts. It is therefore
added,--"Here is the patience of the saints." The events predicted here
agree in time with ch. xiii. 10; and the subjects of persecution are the
same moral person in their legitimate successors who appeared in ch.
xii. 17. They "keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,"
while the multitude "obey unrighteousness, receiving for doctrines the
commandments of men."

To animate these sufferers who are in "jeopardy every hour" and who have
the sentence of death as outlaws, pronounced against them by Antichrist,
John "heard a voice from heaven," directing him to write,--"Blessed are
the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth."--To "die in the
Lord,"--means, in the faith and hope of the gospel, relieved by the
"witness of the Spirit" from the overwhelming fears of the pains of
_purgatory_. Both negatively and positively, this angel testifies
against the antichristian dogma of purgatory. He declares that the
torments of the wicked continue "for ever and ever," while the righteous
who die in the Lord, "cease from their labours."--No stronger testimony
can be conceived against the more gross papal heresy, or the more modern
and so called philosophical delusions of Universalists, Socinians and
others,--all of whom are the offspring of the "mother of harlots." But
besides the voice from heaven, and the concurrent witness of the Spirit,
against the papal dogma of purgatory, the "rest" here proclaimed for the
comfort of martyred saints, may be also understood as a termination to
their sharp conflicts with Antichrist. "_Henceforth_ they rest from
their labours,"--they shall never again be called to "resist unto blood,
striving against sin," as heretofore, by the combined opposition of the
"beast and false prophet," organized tyranny and idolatry. The ministry
of the "third angel," cotemporary with the "seventh trumpet,"--the third
and last "woe," prepares society throughout Christendom for entering
into the millennial rest.

14. And I looked, and, behold, a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat
like unto the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his
hand a sharp sickle.

15. And another came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him
that sat on t