Revelation 11:7-10

I will. exposed in the broad street of the false Church, or somewhere in the dominions or presence of Rome.

During the long period extending from A. D. 533 to 1792,. prophetic period of 1260 years, the two witnesses, the Old and New Testaments, remained in sackcloth. Even where the light had begun to spring up and the Protestant Reformation had taken the place of the Romish faith, there was still intoleration. Puritans were persecuted in England, Baptists in Lutheran Germany, Calvin burnt Servetus in Geneva, Quakers and Baptists were punished for their religion in the American colonies. Still, although the Bible had been translated into various tongues, the witnesses, until nearly the close of the eighteenth century, everywhere testified in sackcloth, for the reason that the world had not yet learned the principles of free religious toleration. Men were not allowed to read and understand the Bible for themselves. At the close of that period it might be said that their testimony was complete. The Bible was translated into every civilized tongue.

" War was made upon them. " Near the close of the last century the most determined attack ever known was made upon the Bible. Voltaire and Rousseau led in France; Frederick the Great in Germany; Tom Paine, Hume, Gibbon, and Bolingbroke in England; Thomas Jefferson and Paine in America. At last the culmination was reached in France. The nation rose in. crusade against all religion. The Convention, composed of the representatives of the mightiest nation then upon the earth, by national law abolished not only the Bible but God. They decreed that France would worship no gods but Reason and Liberty. Atheism became the law of the State.

This is the only instance known to all history of. deliberate legislative enactment abolishing all religion. Most fitly might such an event be styled the slaying of the witnesses who testify of the Lord. For 1260 years the testimony of the witnesses had been in part suppressed; in 1793 it was enacted that they should testify no more, or henceforth should be silent as death. It was decreed that time should date no more from the Christian era, and that the week itself should be abolished because it was. Bible division of time. Let it be borne in mind:

1. that the war was waged by the power from the bottomless pit; an infidel power;

2. the witnesses were slain by the state which had done more than all others to build up and uphold the temporal power of the Pope. They lie in the street of the great city.

3. It is just 1260 years, the prophetic period, from the time when the Pope was styled Lord of the Church by imperial authority, until the date of the abolition of the Bible and of God by "the eldest son of the Church," or from A. D. 633 to A. D. 1793.

They lie unburied in the streets. Some have supposed that this refers to the contemptuous treatment given to the witnesses. None but the most savage power will leave its slain enemies unburied. There was never. more savage power than this infidel France of 1793.. suppose that it rather refers to the fact that they could not get the witnesses out of sight. Though slain by law, the Bible still remained and haunted its enemies. Its enemies could not abolish it from their remembrance.