intelligent Christian in the declaration, that men too often "profess that they know God, but in works deny him." This explains the fact of Antichrist's denying the Father and the Son. Usurping the prerogatives of the Mediator is a practical denial of him,--of his authority, and by consequence, of the Father who sent him. "He that acknowledged the Son," in this sense, "hath the Father also; while it is equally true, in the same sense,--"whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." (1 John ii. 23.) Hence it _is not true_ that the _Pope_ is the _Antichrist_ of prophecy, nor the church of Rome, nor both combined; but Daniel's ten-horned beast,--John's seven-headed, ten-horned beast, which are the same: Daniel's little horn and John's beast of the earth, which are the same; together with the image of the first beast: the Saracenic locusts and Euphratean horsemen;--all these go to the composition of the Antichrist, the "eastern and western Antichrist," so identified and _familiarly_ designated by the _martyrs_ and _witnesses_ of Jesus for hundreds of years. The great family of nations, called "the nations of this world," (chap. xi. 15;) in unholy alliance with a _gentile_ church; (ch. xi. 2;) _these combined, constitute the Antichrist_. They "will not have this man to reign over them." Against this combination it is the appointed business,--the life of the two witnesses, to prophesy for a definite period of 42 months, 1260 days, time, times and a half; all indicating the same duration, 1260 natural years. All this time the witnesses are alive and active, but in an obscure and depressed condition, wearing sackcloth in the wilderness, "not reckoned, (not _reckoning themselves_,) among the nations." (Num. xxiii. 9; Dan. vii. 22, 27; Rev. xx. 4.) Such is the condition of the saints, and such the powerful combination against them, as symbolically represented in the 11th, 12th and 13th chapters of the Apocalypse. And in this prolonged and eventful conflict we may with Moses, "turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt." (Exod. iii. 3.) The Lord was in the bush, and "greater is he that is in them than he that is in the world." (1 John iv. 4.) This will appear in the following chapter. CHAPTER XIV.