WHO ARE THE WITNESSES?

1 Who is the speaker? The first chapter and first verse answers the question: “The revelation of Jesus Christ.” The witnesses, then, are Christ’s.PREX2 204.2

2 Who are Christ’s witnesses? I shall not stop to inquire what has been said on this subject, but, as directly as possible, come at the answer which Christ himself has given us to the question. But I remark—PREX2 204.3

(1.) It is not one man, nor any body of men; for Christ declares, (John 5:34,) “I receive not testimony from man.” With this plain declaration before us, if we have any confidence in Christ, how can any one longer insist on either the whole church, or a succession of pious ministers, or yet two eminent men who either have arisen, or will arise as Christ’s witnesses?PREX2 204.4

(2.) What Christ said of himself is not his witness. John 5:31: “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” That is, if I only give my own assertions as to myself, my witness is not valid, or to be received as sufficient evidence.PREX2 205.1

(3.) John the Baptist is not the witness of Christ. John 5:33, 36: “Ye sent unto John, and he bear witness unto the truth.” “But I have greater witness than that of John.” John was a burning and shining light; he testified the truth, but was a man, a fallible man still.PREX2 205.2

But the witnesses are—PREX2 205.3

I. The works of Christ. John 5:36: “For the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.” The faithful evidence of those works we have in the gospel. This witness Christ also claims, Matthew 24:14:“This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a WITNESS to all nations.”PREX2 205.4

II. The Father is another witness. John 5:37: “And the father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me.” But where is his witness? Christ answers, “Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.” “And ye have not his word abiding in you.” Where, then, is the testimony? John 5:39: “Search the Scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me.” A more distinct declaration of the two witnesses cannot be desired, or if desired, cannot be obtained.PREX2 205.5

The Old Testament was all the scriptures which had then been written, and hence must be the testimony of the Father to which the Savior referred. The Old Testament was then complete, and the record of the works of Christ is to be found in the New Testament. These two witnesses have continued to testify and prophesy through the darkest night the church has ever seen. They have been faithful and true witnesses of the Lord, telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.PREX2 206.1

Verse 4: “These are the two olive-trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth:”PREX2 206.2

On this verse I shall give an extract from Miller’s Lectures, pp. 192-194:—PREX2 206.3

“The angel, in his allusion to the two olive-trees, quotes the prophet Zechariah 4:3: ‘And two olive-trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.’ Here the olive-trees are used in a figurative sense, and properly denote the ‘sons of oil,’ or the two cherubim, which stood over the ark, and spread their wings over the mercy-seat. The wings of the cherubim stretched from either side of the house to the centre over the mercy-seat, and their faces turned inwards down upon the mercy-seat, and the glory of the God of Israel was above the cherubim. These cherubim are a lively type of the Old and New Testament. The signification of cherub is ‘fulness of knowledge;’ so is the word of God, ‘that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished, perfect in every good work.’ They have the whole truth, all we can know about Jesus Christ in this state. They stand on either hand of Christ, one before he came in the flesh, pointing to a Messiah to come, by all its types and shadows; and like the cherub whose wings touched the outer wall of the room and reached to the centre over the mercy-seat, so did the Old Testament reach from the creation of the world down to John’s preaching in the wilderness, and Like the cherub looking down on the mercy-seat, it testified of the Messiah. The other cherub’s wings reached from the centre over the mercy-seat, and touched the other wall of the room, while his face was turned back upon the mercy-seat. So does the New Testament begin at the preaching of John, and reveals all that is necessary for us to know, down to the end of the world. And all the ordinances of the New Testament house look back to the sufferings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and are to continue until his second coming and end of the world. These cherubim were made of olive-trees, and overlaid with pure gold. 1 Kings 6:23-28. Again: the angel tells Zechariah what the two olive-trees are, Zechariah 4:4-6: ‘So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord?’ (the two olive-trees.) ‘Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord. Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerub-babel,’ etc. Here we are plainly told that the two olive-trees are the word of the Lord, and the angel tells John, (Revelation 11:4,) that ‘the two witnesses are the two olive-trees and the two candle-sticks.’ As candlesticks are the means of light, so is the word of God. Candlesticks are used in Scripture in the same sense as lamps. And David says, ‘Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.’ Therefore I humbly believe that I have fairly and conclusively proved that the two witnesses are the Old and New Testament.”PREX2 206.4

The fact that these two witnesses prophesy 1260 days clothed in sackcloth, does not imply that they were only to prophesy that length of time: they might prophesy before the 1260 days began and afterwards; but during that period they were to do it clothed in sackcloth; before end after it, without that covering.PREX2 208.1

Verses 5, 6: “And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies; and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy; and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.”PREX2 208.2

These witnesses, since they are completed, form a perfect revelation of God’s will and law. They are a sufficient rule of faith and duty. God administers his government over men according to the principles therein revealed.PREX2 208.3

1. The fire by which their enemies will be devoured, is declared by their mouth or testimony.PREX2 208.4

2. Those who hurt or do violence to these witnesses, must be killed or receive punishment, as specified in this book. See Revelation 22:18, 19. “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” 3. If there is a. drought, and famine comes on the earth, it will come just in accordance with the testimony of the witnesses. Before the Scriptures were completed, God raised up prophets to foretell particular judgments on individuals and nations; now, since the canon of Scripture is completed, God governs the world, and deals with them by this standing rule, the testimony of these two witnesses. They have power over waters to turn them to blood. Moses and Aaron were commissioned in the judgments of Egypt to pronounce God’s judgments, and thus turn the waters to blood, and inflict in the same way all other plagues. But now, when the seven last plagues come, they will be inflicted or poured out on the earth, according to the testimony of these two witnesses: this, not during the 1260 years only, but while they prophesy.PREX2 208.5

but when and how were the two witnesses clothed in sackcloth? This emblem is used for two purposes; the first, of denoting sorrow, affiction, or mourning. It is so used frequently in the Old Testament. It is also used to denote a state of obscurity and partial darkness. Revelation 6:12: “The sun became black as sackcloth of hair.” Sackcloth of hair over the sun would not produce an entire obscuration; but a state of partial darkness. So the witnesses were to be partially darkened in the testimony they held. It was to be faithfully borne, but in a measure hid. This was accomplished in the establishment of the papal supremacy in A. D. 538. In 533 the Greek emperor declared the Bishop of Rome head of all the holy churches; the head of all Bishops and “the true and effective corrector of heretics.” In 538, he came in possession of the city of Rome, the old seat of the dragon, and gave it to the beast or pope. Vigilius was the first pope who was seated in St. Peter’s chair, as the master of Rome. According to Gibbon, Pope Sylverius was banished from Rome by Belisarius, for supposed treachery, in Jan. 537, but a short time after the Greeks took the city from the Ostrogoths. Immediately, the Ostrogoths besieged the city to reduce and retake it, and continued a close siege until March, 538. At the command of the emperor, Justinian, the clergy of Rome proceeded to the election of a new bishop, and after a solemn invocation of the Holy Ghost, elected the Deacon Vigilius, who had purchased the papal throne by a bribe of two hundred pounds, gold. Vigilius was elected by the direction of the emperor; but the next pope elected was Pelagius, in 558: and he was the first one elected without the consent of the emperor. This fact shows that the popes and church of Rome, after the election and establishment of Vigilius in St. Peter’s chair, acted independently of the emperor.PREX2 209.1

It was by thus putting the church into the hands of the pope, for the purpose of suppressing heresy. To accomplish this object, the Scriptures were suppressed by the church, and shut up in the Greek and Latin languages. Those languages, on the influx of the barbarians into Europe, ceased to be spoken as living languages, and the people could not read the Scriptures. In addition, the church of Rome soon began to restrict the people from the free reading of the Bible, and declared it to be dangerous for the people to read the Bible without the annotations of the clergy. It was thus the witnesses were clothed in sackcloth, A. D. 538.PREX2 210.1

The state of the church is thus strikingly painted by Mr. Croley, (pp. 117-118:)—“The Latin language, overwhelmed in the dialects of the Gothic invaders, had ceased to be spoken; the Latin Scriptures were thus in an unknown tongue; and the people, disturbed and impoverished by perpetual war, had neither time nor knowledge for their translation. The ignorance had reached the clergy; and the pope, more of a warrior and a statesman than a priest, found that he could rise to dominion without the writings of either prophet or apostle. The Scriptures died out of the world’s memory.”PREX2 211.1

Again; (page 119,) Mr. Croley says: “Tyranny and bigotry loved darkness better than light, and strove to crush the gospel. A code of the most furious persecution was established against all who dared to bring the Scriptures out of the dust and put a tongue into the dead. The gospels were trampled and destroyed; their readers were proscribed and exterminated. Rome, in the name of Christ, raged against the Revelation, that he had commanded with his latest words to be ‘preached to every man under heaven.’”PREX2 211.2

Verses 7-10: “And when they shall hate finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people, and, kindreds, and tongues, and nations, shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.”PREX2 211.3

“When they shall have finished, the witnesses then are to be slain; not when they have finished their testimony, but when they are drawing near to finish it. This translation is at once required, both by the Greek idiom and by the harmony of the prediction itself. They are to prophesy only one thousand two hundred and sixty years clothed in sackcloth, and at the end of that same period the power of the little horn is to be broken. Hence it is manifest, that the slaughter must take place during the period, not subsequent to it: for how can the witnesses be slain at the very time when their calamities are finished?”—[Faber on the Prophecies.]PREX2 212.1

The beast from the bottomless pit, is atheistical France. The time when the witnesses were slain, during the French revolution. The French revolution commenced 1789, and was styled the first year of liberty. But the revolutionists had not yet attained their full purpose, and rested not until they had established the reign of demoniac equality and frantic atheism. At an early period of the revolution, the illuminated freemasons took the name of Jacobins, from the name of a convent where they held their meetings. They then counted three hundred thousand adepts, and were supported by two millions of men scattered through France, armed with pikes and torches, and all the implements of revolution. On the 12th of August, 1792, when the king of France was carried prisoner to the temple, and his right to the crown declared forfeited-the atheistical beast exalted himself above all law, and decreed that to the date of rational liberty the date of equality should be added, in future, in all public acts. The names and titles of the nobility were swept away at a stroke, and all distinctions were done away. Thus were slain, seven thousand names of men during this great political earthquake. It is said that the number of titled nobility in France, at the time of this revolution, amounted to seven thousand. Whether it was so or not, it is certain they were very numerous, and all fell. On the 26th, of August, 1792, the beast from the bottomless pit exalted himself above all religion. The 12th witnessed, the fall of all distinctions in civil society, and the 26th beheld the establishment of atheism by law. A decree was passed ordering the clergy to leave the kingdom within a fortnight of its date. But instead of allowing them that time, the whole period was employed in seizing, imprisoning, and putting them to the most cruel deaths. The ministers of religion, both papal and protestant, were now no more in France; and no traces of Christianity could be found in the atheistical metropolis of the republic. One of the churches was converted into a heathen temple, the den of a foreign god; and the rest were used as places of amusement. There the abandoned citizens flocked, not to worship their Maker, but to hear his name blasphemed. At this dreadful period, the Bible was condemned as a lie, and forbidden to be read. It was gathered in heaps and publicly burnt. In some places, also, it was condemned and publicly dragged through the streets with circumstances of contempt. A discourse was pronounced, November 6th, 1792, by Dupont, upon atheism, which was applauded by the convention; and in November, 1793, it was set forth by one of the atheists, that all religious worship had been suppressed in his section, even to the very idea of religion. He added that he and his fellows detested God; and instead of studying the Scriptures they learned the Declaration of Rights. On the 17th of October, 1795, all external signs of religion were abolished, and it was enacted that an inscription should be set up in the public burying grounds, that death is only an eternal sleep. On the 25th of the same month, that no trace of the Sabbath might remain, it was decreed that a new calender should be adopted, reckoning time, not by weeks, but by periods of ten days each.PREX2 212.2

On this important passage, I will here give an extract from Croley, on the Apocalypse, (pp. 119-121.)PREX2 214.1

“A. D. 1793. The Bible had passed out of the hands of the people, in all the dominions of Popery from the time of the supremacy. The doctrines had perished, and left their place to human reveries. The converts were martyred. At length, the full triumph of the old spirit of corruption and persecution terribly arrived. In the year 1793, twelve hundred and sixty years from the letter of Justinian declaring the Pope ‘Universal Bishop,’ the gospel was, by a solemn act of the legislature and the people, abolished in France. The indignities offered to the actual copies of the Bible were unimportant after this; their life is in their doctrines, and the extinction of the doctrines is the extinction of the Bible. By the decree of the French government, declaring that the nation acknowledged no God, the Old and New Testaments were slain throughout the limits of republican France. But contumelies to the sacred books could not have been wanting, in the general plunder of every place of worship. In Lyons they were dragged at the tail of an ass in a procession through the streets.PREX2 214.2

“A very remarkable and prophetic distinction of this period, was the spirit of frenzied festivity which seized upon France.PREX2 215.1

“The capital and all the republican towns were the scene of civic feasts, processions, and shows of the most extravagant kind. The most festive times of peace, under the most expensive kings, were thrown into the shade by the frequency, variety, and extent of the republican exhibitions. Yet this was a time of perpetual miseries throughout France. The guillotine was bloody from morn till night. In the single month of July, 1794, nearly eight hundred persons, the majority principal individuals of the state, and all possessing some respectability of situation, were guillotined in Paris alone. In the midst of this horror, there were twenty-six theatres open, filled with the most profane and profligate displays in honor of the ‘triumph of reason.’PREX2 215.2

“But more formal scoffings were prepared by the express command of the government. On the 1st of November, 1793, Gobet, with the republican priests of Paris, had thrown off the gown and abjured religion. On the 11th, a ‘grand festival,’ dedicated to ‘reason and truth,’ was celebrated in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which had been desecrated, and been named ‘the temple of reason;’ a pyramid was erected in the centre of the church, surmounted by a temple, inscribed ‘to philosophy.’ The torch of ‘truth’ was on the altar of ‘reason,’ spreading light, etc. The National Convention and all the authorities attended at this burlesque and insulting ceremony.PREX2 215.3

“In February, 1794, a grand fete was ordered by the convention, in which hymns to liberty were chanted, and a pageant in honor of the abolition of slavery in the colonies was displayed in the ‘temple of reason.’ In June another festival was ordered-to the Supreme Being; the god of philosophy. But the most superb exhibition was the ‘general festival’ in honor of the republic. It was distinguished by a more audacious spirit of scoffing and profanation than all the former. Robespierre acted the ‘high priest of reason’ on the day, and made himself conspicuous in blasphemy. He was then at the summit of power-actual sovereign of France.PREX2 216.1

“That day had passed the sentence upon his iniquities. It was remarked, even then, that, from the time of that most impious festival, his fortunes turned.PREX2 216.2

“The 14th of July was the date of the festival. On the 28th, Robespierre was a mutilated trunk, with all France exulting over his body. A single fortnight had separated the throne and the scaffold.”PREX2 216.3

Verses 11-13: “And after three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying unto them, come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand; and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.”PREX2 217.1

“Verse 11. In three years and a half from the abolition of religion in France, it shall be restored, and even placed in a more secure and prominent rank than before. The doctrines of Christianity shall be preached with less restraint; the Bible shall ‘be on its feet,’ to the surprise of those who conceived it prostrate forever.PREX2 217.2

“Verse 12. But a still higher and more miraculous distinction is at hand. It shall suddenly, by the very sanction and impulse of God himself, be elevated beyond the power of man to impede its progress. It shall ‘ascend in a cloud,’ (the scriptural expression for triumph and preeminence,) possessing by the divine command an extent of diffusion and dominion, that shall confound its enemies.PREX2 217.3

“Verse 13. The era of this triumph is strongly defined. There shall be, ‘in the same hour,’ (wpx, period,) a political earthquake.PREX2 217.4

“‘The tenth part of the Atheistic city,’ shall fall; a portion of the Infidel empire of France shall be torn away, with the slaughter of many thousands; expressed by seven, the number of completeness. And this catastrophe shall produce a religious influence on the mind of nations.PREX2 217.5

“It is to be observed, that there is a distinction between the ‘remnant’ in the text, and that mentioned in the close of the sixth trumpet, who were stated to have been uninfluenced by the proofs of Divine wrath given in the overthrow of the revolutionary empire. The ‘remnant,’ (which should in both instances have been translated, the rest, [original illegible]) in the sixth trumpet, are named ‘those who were not killed by the plagues;’ men in the same class of obnoxiousness to punishment with those who perished; idolaters, persecutors, etc. But in the present text there is no such description; the word [original illegible] alone, is used. The absence of the previous designation generalizes the word, and leaves it capable of being applied to all the spectators of the judicial ruin, whose less impure faith might be increased in. purity by the terror of the example.PREX2 218.1

“A. D. 1794. From the fall of Robespierre, the fury of Atheism was gradually diminished, and some attempts were made to restore the old worship. But a conception of the remoteness of this re-establishment from Christianity may be formed by the declaration of the constitutional Bishops in 1796, that ‘Christianity was only a republication of the rights of man.’ The popish church, however, made continual advances to its former privileges; and, excepting the diminished salaries of the clergy, was placed nearly in its original situation.PREX2 218.2

“But this system was about to be contrasted with a church, to which France will owe whatever of mercy she may find in the coming hour.PREX2 218.3

“A. D. 1797. On the 17th of June, Camille Jourdan, in the ‘Council of Five Hundred,’ brought up the memorable report on the ‘Revision of the laws relative to religious worship.’ It consisted of a number of propositions, abolishing alike the republican restrictions on Popish worship, and the Popish restrictions on Protestant.PREX2 219.1

“1. That all citizens might buy or hire edifices for the free exercise of religious worship.PREX2 219.2

“2. That all congregations might assemble by the sound of bells.PREX2 219.3

“3. That no test or promise of any sort, unrequired from other citizens, should be required of the ministers of those congregations.PREX2 219.4

“4. That any individual attempting to impede, or in any way interrupt, the public worship should be fined, up to five hundred livres, and not less than fifty; and that if the interruption proceeded from the constituted authorities, such authorities should be fined double the sum.PREX2 219.5

“5. That entrance to assemblies for the purpose of religious worship should be free for all citizens.PREX2 219.6

“6. That all other laws concerning religious worship should be repealed.PREX2 219.7

“Those regulations, in comprehending the whole state of worship in France, were, in fact, a peculiar boon to Protestantism. Popery was already in sight of full restoration. But Protestantism, crushed under the burthen of the laws of Louis XIV., and unsupported by the popular belief, required the direct support of the state to ‘stand on its feet.’ The report seems even to have had an especial view to the grievances of the church; the old prohibitions to hold public worship, to have ingress, etc.PREX2 219.8

“From that period the church has been free in France, and it now numbers probably as large a population as before its fall. It is a striking coincidence, that, almost at the moment when this great measure was determined on, the French army under Bonaparte, was seen invading and partitioning the papal territory. The next year, (1798,) saw it master of Rome, the popedom a republic, and the Pope a prisoner and an exile.PREX2 220.1

“The Church and the Bible had been slain in France from November, 1793, till June, 1797. The three years and a half were expended, and the Bible, so long and sternly repressed before, was placed in honor, and was openly the book of free Protestantism!” ^{3Croley, pp. 121-124.}PREX2 220.2

I cannot conclude this passage without referring the reader to an exposition of the thirteenth verse, by Rev. Peter Jurieu, minister of the French church at Rotterdam, in 1687. On Revelation 11:13, he says:—PREX2 220.3

“Mark that the great earthquake, i. e. the great alteration of affairs in the land of the papacy, must for that time happen only in the tenth part of the city that shall fall; for this shall be the effect of this earthquake.PREX2 220.4

“Now what is this tenth part of the city, which shall fall? In my opinion, we cannot doubt that it is France. This kingdom is the most considerable part or piece of the ten horns, or states, which once made up the great Babylonian city; it fell; this does not signify that the French monarchy shall be ruined; it may be humbled; but in all appearance. Providence does design a great elevation for her afterward. It is highly probable that God will not let go unpunished the horrible outrages which it acts at this day [of persecution.] Afterward, it must build its greatness upon the ruins of the papal empire, and enrich itself with the spoils of those who shall take part with the papacy. They who persecute the Protestants, know not whither God is leading them; this is not the way by which he will lead France to the height of glory. If she comes thither, it is because she shall shortly change her road. Her greatening will be no damage to Protestant states; on the contrary, the Protestant states shall be enriched with the spoils of others; and be strengthened by the fall of Antichrist’s empire. This tenth part of the city shall fall with respect to the papacy; it shall break with Rome and the Roman religion. One thing is certain, that the Babylonian empire shall perish through the refusal of obedience by the ten kings, who had given their power to the beast. The thing is already come to pass in part. The kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark, England, and several sovereign states in Germany, have withdrawn themselves from the jurisdiction of the pope. They have spoiled the harlot of her riches. They have eaten her flesh, i. e. seized on her benefices and revenues, which she had in their countries. This must go on, and be finished as it is begun. The kings who yet remain under the empire of Rome must break with her, leave her solitary and desolate.PREX2 220.5

“But who must begin this last revolt? It is most probable that France shall. Not Spain, which as yet is plunged in superstition, and is as much under the tyranny of the clergy as ever. Not the emperor, who in temporals is subject to the pope, and permits, that in his states the archbishop of Strigonium should teach that the pope can take away the Imperial crown from him. It cannot be any country but France, which a long time ago hath begun to shake off the yoke of Rome.PREX2 221.1

“And in the earthquake were slain seven thousand; in the Greek it is seven thousand names of men, and not seven thousand men. I confess that this seems somewhat mysterious; in other places we find not this phrase, names of men, put simply for men. Perhaps there is here a figure of grammar called hypallage casus; so that names of men are put for men of name; i. e. of raised and considerable quality, be it on the account of riches, or of dignity, or of learning. But I am more inclined to say, that here these words names of men, must be taken in their natural signification, and do intimate that the total reformation of France shall not be made with bloodshed, nothing shall be destroyed but NAMES; such as are the names of Monks, of Carmelites, of Augustines, of Dominicans, of Jacobins, of Franciscans, Capuchins, Jesuits, Minimes, and an infinite company of others, whose number it is not easily to define, and which the Holy Ghost denotes by the number seven, which is the number of perfection, to signify that the orders of monks and nuns shall perish forever. This is an institution so degenerated from its first original, that it is become the arm of antichrist. These orders cannot perish one with another.”PREX2 222.1

“These great events deserve to be distinguished from all others; for they have changed, or shall change, the whole face of the world.”PREX2 222.2

And again he says, on page 276, “The first thing which shall be done in the third period of the seventh vial, is the fall of the tenth part of the city, i. e. of the kingdom of France, which shall break with the court of Rome, and wholly change the face of religion in that kingdom. This is the first action of the vintage.”PREX2 222.3

A more perfect history of the effect of the French revolution in breaking with Rome, abolishing all titles, dignities and orders of men, can scarcely now be given with the history before us. And yet it is all now history.PREX2 223.1