An humble attempt to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God's people in…

What we render, When they shall have finished their Testimony, Mr. Lowman, from Mr. Daubuz, renders, While they shall perform their Testimony; and observes, that the Original may mean the Time of their Testimony, as well as the End of it.

I might here observe that we have other Instances of God's shortening the Days of his Church's Captivity and Bondage, either at the Beginning or End, very parallel with what has been now supposed in the Case of the Witnesses. Thus the proper Time of the Bondage of the Posterity of Abraham in Egypt, was four hundred Years; Gen. xv.13. But yet God in Mercy deferred the Beginning of their Bondage; whereby the Time was much shortened at the Beginning. So the Time wherein it was foretold that the whole Land of Israel should be a Desolation and an Astonishment, and the Land should enjoy her Sabbaths, by the Babylonish Captivity, was ⟨p. 125⟩seventy Years; Jer. xxv.11, 12. and these seventy Years are dated in 2 Chron. xxxvi.20, 21. from Zedekiah's Captivity; and yet, from that Captivity to Cyrus's Decree, was but fifty two Years; tho' it was indeed seventy Years before the more full Restoration of the Jewish Church and State by Darius's Decree, Ezra vi. So the proper Time of the Oppression and Bondage of the Jewish Church under Antiochus Epiphanes, wherein both the Sanctuary and Host should be trodden under Foot by him, was two thousand three hundred Days; Dan. viii.13, 14. The Time from Antiochus's taking Jerusalem and polluting the Sanctuary, to Antiochus's Death, seems to have been about so long: But God shortened the Days, by granting remarkable Help to his People by Means of the Maccabees, before that Time: Yea the Temple and Sanctuary were restored, and the Altar rebuilt and dedicated before that Time.