the only two most perfect codes of moral, social, and religious precepts, for the regulation and government of the thoughts and actions of men, towards the Supreme Author of their existence, themselves, and their fellow-creatures; and that, by a practical observation of them, mankind may regain the state of immortality. and happiness, from which they have unfortunately fallen by their disobedience. The two great laws are here also represented; by which mankind shall be tried, and acquitted or condemned, according to the deeds done in this probationary state, before the "KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS*."

In support of this interpretation of the text, I shall only observe, that in my humble opinion, a more apt and comprehensive figure of the two Testaments could not be invented by the wit of man, than the " two olive-trees: for, of all the vegetable tribes, the olive-tree affords the richest oil, and a very nutritious food for the sustenance of the body of man. It is also a sweetner of the blood, and an antidote to poison. In the same manner those sacred oracles of God's righteous will, afford the most perfect and excellent instruction, the richest food for the soul or spirit of man. They direct him in the path in which he should walk, and in the use of the means by which he may recover from his fallen state. They

Chap. xvii. 14.

teach and feed him with the knowledge, fear, and love of God, and an entire submission and holy obedience to the divine will.They fill him with patience, hope, faith and comfort, under the deepest afflictions: they prepare his soul for a life of eternal happiness, and are antidotes against the poison of all manner of evil. Zechariah, in his prophecy of the restoration of the church*, describes them by the metaphor of " the two anointed ones," or (as the Hebrew text has it) " the two sons of oil that stand before the God of the earth."In both cases they are aptly described: God has anointed and consecrated them by his holy Spirit, and they very appositely answer to the trope of the "two sons of oil:" for oil is, in sundry places, made use of as the type of the holy Spirit of God, which actuates, enlightens, and consecrates all thingst; and the two Testaments are here very properly called the two sons of that Spirit, as they proceeded from, and were written under, and by its divine inspiration, for the evident purpose of revealing light and truth, to his ignorant and fallen creatures.

They are, moreover, prefixed in the text with equal propriety by the "two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth :" for as a candlestick holds out to view the candle which illuminates a room, so the two Testaments hold up to the comprehension of the world, the light and knowledge of the Gos

Chap. iv. 3. 14.

Exodus, xxviii. 7. Psalm xlv. 7.

pel of Christ, or the will and providence of God, the Father and Creator of all things, to mankind; and by their " standing before the God of the earth," or Jesus Christ, to whom God has delegated the power of judging the earth, we are to understand, that he will perform that awful task by the light of his own revelation of his Father's will, standing before him on the records of the two Testaments. If any serious person should doubt this explanation of the "two witnesses," I would refer him to the authority of Christ himself; for he enjoins us to " search the Scriptures ;" and expressly declares," they are they which testify of met" they are "my two witnesses."

The angel, having before made known, that a schism should take place in the "holy city," or the church of Christ; that "the court "which is without the temple, shall be sepa"rated from the altar, and given to the Gen"tiles, who shall tread the church of Christ "under foot" 1260 years, and explained the meaning of the "two witnesses," proceeds to foretel what shall be their state and condition during that long period: they shall prophesy in sackcloth." The evident interpretation of this trope is, that during the domination and persecutions of the Mohamedan and Papal hierarchies, the pure truths of God, attested by the two witnesses," shall lose a great part of their weight and influence in the world. They St. John, v. 39.

Acts, x. 42.

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shall be misunderstood, misapplied, tortured, perverted, and corrupted by the two apostacies. They shall be as grass trodden under foot, of little or no value in the estimation of mankind. Many true believers shall be seduced from the pure profession of the faith, and many be put to death; and yet those sacred books, and the truths therein contained, shall not utterly be lost, but shall be preserved, and, in some degree, understood; and continue to predict the great and awful events that shall come to pass in the course of God's providence, and government of the world, to the end of time.

If we will not shut our eyes to the clearest evidence of innumerable histories, and, indeed, against that of our own senses, we must perceive, that the depresssion of the "two witnesses" has, in a great measure, been fulfilled. When the prophet wrote, the doctrine of the two Testaments had made a great progress in the world. The influence of it over the minds and actions of men, continued to increase during several ages after. In the time of Constantine the Great, it became the religion of the late heathen world. So that there was nothing to induce the prophet to believe that christianity could ever fall into decay, or lose its general influence, unless by supernatural information: and yet he boldly announces that it would be so. From a multitude of histories we learn the rapid progress of christianity in the first centuries, notwithstanding the power

ful opposition and cruel persecutions of pagan Rome, the then mistress of the heathen world. After that period, and the consequent decline of the truths attested by the two Testaments, under the terrible persecutions of the two great apostacies, from their establishment in the beginning of the seventh century, the pure Gospel of Christ became strangely and most wickedly perverted, to answer the nefarious purposes of their unbridled lusts and insatiable ambition; and to that degree, that, before the eleventh century, it was in a great measure sunk into superstition, idolatry, and sensuality. In this dispirited, this distressful state, without energy or influence, it remained until the fifteenth century, when learning and freedom of inquiry reared their heads, and the corner-stone of the reformation was laid. From that epoch, the two Testaments have been translated into many languages, been more generally read, and better understood; and ignorance, idolatry, and sensuality introduced into the christian world, by those two great apostacies, have in proportion fallen before the blessed truths of the "two witnesses" of God: but not so fallen as to justify true believers in laying aside their “sackcloth," and lamenting that the truths of the Gospel of Christ are not yet restored to their primitive purity; nor that perfect faith in the providence and the revealed will of God, which leads to the salvation and eternal happiness of man, fully established.