Page:Darby - Notes on the Book of Revelations, 1839.djvu/69

 the hands of the beast of the bottomless pit; when they shall have fulfilled their testimony. The eighth verse seems to me designed to afford the general and specific applications, both of which I have stated my belief to be, in the mind of the Spirit of God. First, the great city of the world; which was where Christ was crucified, and specifically Jerusalem, where religious apostasy, always the leader of the world’s evil, locally committed the act.

As regards the interpretation, which would give one thousand two hundred and sixty years to this prophecy, enough has been said by others—a testimony, raised during the protracted moral apostasy, to which I believe the Holy Spirit attaches more importance than many are inclined to do; for God loves His saints. I believe it was of the last possible importance, but not of closing importance—not the great closing scene. I hold that it held, to the manifestation of the personal Antichrist, the same relation as the Church, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, does to the personal coming of Christ, the Lord; and that is not unimportant or immaterial, very far otherwise, or a light object of God’s guardian and all thoughtful eye. Slaughtered saints, and worshipped demons,