equally of the learned and the illiterate.  The like fanciful and diversified opinions have been, and still are, prevalent in relation to what constitutes “the Antichrist.” (1 John ii. 22.) Now, it is evident, even on a cursory perusal of the Apocalypse; that the witnesses and their opponents are the principal parties symbolized in the whole series of the seals, trumpets and vials.  How then can any one attain to a rational understanding of the manifold details, who remains “willingly ignorant” of the principal characters in this grandest of all tragico-dramas, presented to man’s view on the stage of Jehovah’s moral empire, to be contemplated for the whole period of 1260 years?  The prevailing ignorance, bewilderment and error, in the minds of most spectators of these moving scenes, we are warranted to expect. (Dan. xii. 10.) For the present we define the witnesses and Antichrist concisely thus:—­The Witnesses are a competent number of Christians, who for 1260 years, insist upon the application of God’s word to church and state; and who testify against all communities who rebel against the Lord Christ. Such communities, in visible organization, constitute THE ANTICHRIST, as will more fully appear in the thirteenth and seventeenth chapters, where the two prominent parties are more formally presented.

Let us never lose sight of the fact, that these witnesses cease not to prophesy,—­to apply the scriptures, especially the prophetical parts of them, during the whole period of 1260 years; that is, while they live.  Authentic history supplies abundant evidence that such has been their special work all along since the rise of the antichristian enemy.  That enemy is but obscurely mentioned,—­not described in the “little book,” the contents of which we have, as already said, in this chapter, (vs. 1-13.) The character and achievements of the witnesses may be found in the familiar histories of the Culdees and Lollards of Britain, the Waldenses of Piedmont, the Bohemian Brethren; together with the more recent and successful reformers on the continent of Europe and in the British Isles.  Is it unnecessary to mention the names of those men of renown,—­Zwingle, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Henderson, etc.,—­men “mighty in words and in deeds,” whose influence on the great “family of nations,” their very enemies have reluctantly attested?  The testimony of an enemy has ever been deemed weighty.  The following is appropriate and decisive from the polished pen of the historian of the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:”  “The visible assemblies of the Paulicians, or Albigeois, were extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding remnant escaped by flight, concealment, or catholic conformity.  But the invincible spirit which they had kindled still lived and breathed in the western world.—­In the state, in the church, and even in the cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the disciples of St. Paul, who protested against the tyranny of Rome, embraced the Bible as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the visions of the Gnostic theology.  The struggles of Wickliff in England, and of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffectual:  but the names of Zuinglius, Luther and Calvin, are pronounced with gratitude as the deliverers of nations."[2]