The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

VII. Galloway-Two Testament Witnesses Dead From 1792-1796

JOSEPH GALLOWAY (c. 1730-1803), American lawyer and Loyalist in Revolutionary times, was born in Maryland. He was one of Philadelphia’s most popular and distinguished lawyers, and from 1756 to 1776 was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, serving as Speaker from 1766 to 1775. In 1774, he became a delegate to the Continental Congress, in which he took a prominent part. He discouraged radical action and proposed a union between Great Britain and the colonies. In 1776 Galloway joined the British Army. On the capture of Philadelphia he was made police magistrate, and superintendent of the port. He soon re moved to England, however, his remaining years being devoted to the study of prophecy, resulting in several published works in this field. One of his most important works was, Brief Commentaries Upon Such Parts of the Revelation and Other Prophecies, as Immediately Refer to the Present Times. PFF2 779.1

1. BEAST FROM ABYSS THE CENTRAL FIGURE

Galloway had an abhorrence of the revolutionary and infidelic principles of Republican France. Being interested mainly in the fulfillment of prophecy during his time, he devoted a long chapter to the two faithful Witnesses and their slaying by the Beast from the bottomless pit. ⁵² Following certain Protestant interpretations, reaching back to Mede, he held that the seven seals cover the history of the church of the early centuries, with the seven trumpets as the development of the sixth seal. These trumpets were God’s judgments against the apostate church-the first four covering the Gothic invasions in the West, and the fifth and sixth the incursions of the Saracens and Turks in the East, which opened the pit of the abyss. The 1260 years might be dated from Phocas and Mohammed respectively. PFF2 779.2

2. DEATH OF WITNESSES FROM 1792 TO 1796

Galloway gives a very detailed explanation, which led him to the conclusion that the Two Witnesses were slain in France. He maintains that the “‘beast that shall ascend out of the bottomless pit;’ or, as it will presently appear, of an infidel and atheistical power, more hardened, more mischievous, and consummately wicked, than either of the two that rose before it.” ⁵³ PFF2 779.3

He, in contrast to many others, sees in the Two Witnesses neither Elias and Enoch nor yet Luther and Calvin, but the Old and New Testaments. ⁵⁴ “These two holy prophets and oracles of God, alone, among all the variety of things upon the earth, can satisfy and fulfil the figurative description of the text.” ⁵⁵ PFF2 780.1

“Is it not by these two sacred and infallible records, ... [which have] been preserved amidst the waste of all-devouring time, the ravages of wars, the wrecks of books, and even during the dark ages of Pagan sensuality, of Mohammedan ignorance, and Papal superstition. I ask, is it not by these two holy records alone, that God has been pleased to reveal and attest his righteous and immaculate will to mankind?” ⁵⁶ PFF2 780.2

Concerning the Witnesses’ prophesying in sackcloth, he writes: PFF2 780.3

“The evident interpretation of this trope is, that during the domination and persecutions of the Mohammedan and Papal hierarchies, the pure truths of God, attested by the ‘two witnesses’ shall lose a great part of their weight and influence in the world. They shall be misunderstood, misapplied, tortured, perverted, and corrupted by the two apostasies.” ⁵⁷ PFF2 780.4

They will be killed, he continues, by the beast ascending out of the bottomless pit. And who is this beast? It is “a power which should utterly efface from the minds of men, all the truths revealed to mankind by the two Testaments, and establish atheism in their stead: atheism, the consummation of error, impiety, and sin!” ⁵⁸ It is the coming of an atheistic power that will conspire against and “ ‘kill the two witnesses of God;’ or, as I have said before, extinguish in the minds of men all sense and influence of the sacred truths revealed in the Old and New Testaments.” ⁵⁹ PFF2 780.5

Where do we find such a power? There have always been individuals who have denied God. PFF2 780.6

“But if we search the annals of the world, we shall not find even a private society or sect, much less a civil community and state, which, before our day, has, in the most public manner proclaimed to all the nations around it, that THERE IS NO GOD! and made that position the basis of the constitution of its government.... It is obviously, that political and atheistical monster, the revolutionary power now ruling the French nation.” ⁶⁰ PFF2 780.7

Galloway thought (1) that the “little horn” is not a type of the pope, but of a different political power, to be explained here after; (2) that the pope in no part of the prophecies is referred to as a horn or temporal prince, but is only designated by the symbol of a beast, which signifies a cruel and wicked power, whether civil or ecclesiastical. (Verse 8.) And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city. It is here not unworthy of remark that the prophet does not say that the two witnesses themselves be dead but only their ” ‘dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city.’” ⁶¹ PFF2 781.1

The great city at the time of the fulfillment of this prophecy cannot be Rome, as some commentators suppose, because it is a metropolis of a small territory, but it is Paris. It is compared to Sodom and Egypt, “remarkable among its contemporaries for the like depravity, and wilful ignorance of the true God. Papal Rome has been remarkable among its neighbours for neither.” ⁶² PFF2 781.2

Verse 9. Their dead bodies will be seen three days and a half. That is “three years and an half: that is, from the time of the final expulsion of the clergy (when all practical religion ceased in France), to the date of the decree for tolerating all religion.” ⁶³ PFF2 781.3

3. INFIDELIC FRANCE THE BKAST FROM EARTH

Galloway likewise explained the seven-headed dragon, the Beast from the sea, and the Beast from the earth, in Revelation 12, 13, as pagan Rome, papal Rome, and infidelic France, respectively. The great confederacy of Babylon was still to be formed. The millennium is still future, and will be synchronous with the reign of Christ with His saints. Such was the teaching of the last expositor of the century we shall note. PFF2 782.1