Isaac Newton, Observations Upon The Prophecies Of Daniel and The Apocalypse Of St. John

Upon the fifteenth day of the month, and the six following days, there were very great sacrifices. And in allusion to the sounding of the trumpets, and singing with thundering voices, and pouring out drink-offerings at those sacrifices, seven trumpets are sounded, and seven thunders utter their voices, and seven vials of wrath are poured out. Wherefore the sounding of the seven trumpets, the voices of the seven thunders, and the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath, are synchronal, and relate to one and the same division of the time of the seventh seal following the silence, into seven successive parts. The seven days of this feast were called the feast of Tabernacles; and during these seven days the children of Israel dwelt in booths, and rejoiced with palm-branches in their hands. To this alludes the multitude with palms in their hands, which appeared after the sealing of the 144000, and came out of the great tribulation with triumph at the battle of the great day, to which the seventh trumpet sounds. The visions therefore of the 144000, and of the palm-bearing multitude, extend to the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and therefore are synchronal to the times of the seventh seal.

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, Zechariah 4: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 threatened 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 catholic, 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.

In the interpretation of this Prophecy, the woman in heaven clothed with the sun, before she flies into the wilderness, represents the primitive Church catholic, illuminated with the seven lamps in the seven golden candlesticks, which are the seven Churches of Asia. The Dragon signifies the same Empire with Daniel’s He-goat in the reign of his last horn, that is, the whole Roman Empire, until it became divided into the Greek and Latin Empire; and all the time of that division it signifies the Greek Empire alone: and the Beast is Daniel’s fourth Beast, that is, the Empire of the Latins.