These are the 144000 sealed out
of all the twelve tribes of _Israel_, and called the _two Witnesses_, as
being derived from the two wings of the woman while she was flying into the
wilderness, and represented by two of the seven candlesticks. These appear
to _John_ in the inward court of the second Temple, standing on mount
_Sion_ with the Lamb, and as it were on the sea of glass. These are _the
Saints of the most High_, and _the host of heaven_, and _the holy people_
spoken of by _Daniel_, as worn out and trampled under foot, and destroyed
in the latter times by the little horns of his fourth Beast and He-Goat.
While the _Gentiles_ tread the holy city under foot, God _gives power to
his two Witnesses, and they prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore
days clothed in sackcloth_. They are called _the two Olive-trees_, with
relation to the two Olive-trees, which in _Zechary_'s vision, chap. iv.
stand on either side of the golden candlestick to supply the lamps with
oil: and Olive-trees, according to the Apostle _Paul_, represent Churches,
_Rom._ xi. They supply the lamps with oil, by maintaining teachers. They
are also called _the two candlesticks_; which in this Prophecy signify
Churches, the seven Churches of _Asia_ being represented by seven
candlesticks. Five of these Churches were found faulty, and threatned if
they did not repent; the other two were without fault, and so their
candlesticks were fit to be placed in the second Temple.
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