When the 144000 _are sealed out of all the twelve tribes of _Israel__, and the rest receive _the mark of the Beast_, and thereby the first temple is destroyed; _John_ is bidden to _measure the temple and altar_, that is, their courts, _and them that worship therein_, that is, the 144000 standing on mount _Sion_ and on the sea of glass: _but the court that is without the temple_, that is, the peoples court, to _leave out and measure it not, because it is given to the_ Gentiles, those who receive the mark of the Beast; _and the holy city they shall tread under foot forty and two months_, that is, all the time that the Beast acts under the woman _Babylon_: and _the two witnesses prophesy 1260 days_, that is, all the same time, _clothed in sackcloth. These have power_, like _Elijah, to shut heaven that it rain not_, at the sounding of the first trumpet; and, like _Moses, to turn the waters into blood_ at the sounding of the second; _and to smite the earth with all plagues_, those of the trumpets, _as often as they will_. These prophesy at the building of the second temple, like _Haggai_ and _Zechary_. These are _the two Olive-trees_, or Churches, which _supplied the lamps with oil_, _Zech._ iv. These are _the two candlesticks_, or Churches, _standing before the God of the earth_. Five of the seven Churches of _Asia_, those in prosperity, are found fault with, and exhorted to repent, and threatned to be _removed out of their places_, or _spewed out of _Christ's_ mouth_, or _punished with the sword of _Christ's_ mouth, except they repent_: the other two, the Churches of _Smyrna_ and _Philadelphia_, which were under persecution, remain in a state of persecution, to illuminate the second temple. When the primitive Church catholick, represented by _the woman in heaven_, apostatized, and became divided into two corrupt Churches, represented by the _whore of _Babylon__ and the _two-horned Beast_, the 144000 _who were sealed out of all the twelve tribes_, became the _two Witnesses_, in opposition to those two false Churches: and the name of _two Witnesses_ once imposed, remains to the true Church of God in all times and places to the end of the Prophecy.