| 170 they are killed; but to have power to shut the heavens, that it rain not in the days of their prophesy: men suppress the scriptures, these are not to be suppressed by men.
4. "These have power over waters to turn them to blood; and to smite the earth with all plagues as oft as they will.' All the plagues which have ever come on the earth or ever will, whether on nations or individuals, are in accordance with the principle laid down tin the Bible.-They have the power to pronounce these judgements [judgments]."
What if the plagues are in accordance with the scriptures; do the scriptures pronounce these judgements [judgments]? Certainly not. Noah pronounced the judgement [judgment] on the Antideluvians [Antediluvian's]; the angel and Lot, that of Sodom and Gomorrah [Gomorra]; our Savior, the destruction of Jerusalem, and Mr. Miller, (not the scriptures) the burning of the world in 1843 or 1844. Did the scriptures ever smite the earth with plagues; or turn the waters to blood? Folly! nonsense! They never did, nor they never will.
5. "If any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and burneth up their enemies. If any man hurt them he must in this manner be killed.' The word of God pronounces its own sentence on all who injure it, and just what they pronounce will be fulfilled. 'I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophesy of this book. If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in the book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophesy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.' Rev. xxii:18, 19."
When did fire ever proceed from the scriptures and kill any body? Fire descended from heaven in Elijah's day and killed many men; but we no where read of the scriptures doing it, and we are only surprised at the ignorance of men for teaching such stuff, and the gullibility of men for receiving it. Relative to the above quotation, we think that if any persons are likely to receive the fire or the plagues, Mr. Miller, and his authors will stand a good chance, for we scarcely know an instance of men making so many additions to that book, as the ones here referred to.
6. "When they have finished their testimony, (or as Mr. Faber renders it, when they are about to finish their testimony,) the beast which ascendeth out of the bottomless pit, shall make war on them, and kill them."
"A 'beast,' in the symbolical language of Revelation, signifies a government. "The beast from the bottomless pit," is a government that has no foundation to build upon, but rises up without religion and illegitimately. Such was the Revolutionary government of France, at the close of the last century. It was founded in Atheism and the rejection of religion in every form. That government made war on the Bible, and swore to exterminate it-declared it to be a lie, Jesus Christ an imposter [impostor], death an eternal sleep, and, finally, that there is no God.-They closed the churches of France, and executed the clergy. They abolished the Sabbath, and every other institution founded on the Bible. The worship of God in all forms and kinds was discarded and prohibited. It was thus, this government made war on the witnesses and killed them. They gathered Bibles in heaps, and burned them. They tied a copy of the Bible to the tail of an ass, and dragged it through the streets of Lyons, while the populace followed with shouts and acclamations. The abrogation of religion took place September 1793; and in 1797, in the month of March, (after just three and a half years) the law was passed revoking the decrees against religion, and granted toleration to all Christians.
7. "Thus, during the three days and a half, their dead bodies were not permitted to be put in their graves, although they lay dead in the streets of the great Roman city, which is spiritually, or by the Spirit, is called Sodom and Egypt, from its gross licentiousness, and oppression of the people, of God-the crying sins of Sodom; "where, also, our Lord was crucified," in the person of his members and disciples.-From thirty thousand to fifty thousand Heugunots [Huguenots] slain in France in one night, on St., Bartholomew's eve, 1572.
'They of the nations shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves."
"Although condemned and denounced in France, yet in other nations the Bible still lived in the sight of the people. The boast of the infidels to exterminate the Bible, was brought to nought [naught].
8. "After three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon them which saw them."
"The resurrection of the witnesses and their exultation to heaven, is the revocation of the laws against religious worship and the Bible, 1797, three and a half years from the prohibition in 1793. Great fear fell on the infidel world when they saw the triumph of the Bible., and its spread over the earth. The great voice from heaven saying to them, "come up hither," is the universal demand of the moral world for the Bible. So that since 1798, it has been translated either in whole or in part, into more than 150 different languages, and spread in nearly all nations."
Unfortunately for Mr. Miller's theory, the dead bodies of these prophets were to lay in the streets of Jerusalem; and not in the streets of Lyons, in France in the streets of that city which spiritually (when the Lord means us to spiritualize he tells us of it,) was called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. The place is here already designated, Where was our Lord crucified? The answer is in Jerusalem. We might again ask, where will these prophets prophecy, be killed, and raised? The answer is in Jerusalem, not in Lyons, nor in any other place, for it was where our Lord was crucified, that they were to prophecy. But to say that the scriptures were destroyed at that time is too far fetched even for a spiritualizer;
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