SECONDLY, What death they must die? I answer, Not a corporeal one,
but that which is mystically such. And I choose to understand it
thus, because this suiteth best with their state and condition,
which is mystical. Besides, thus did they (when they did overcome,)
slay their enemies, even with the fire or sword of their mouth:
'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' (Rev 11:5). As therefore they went
about to kill their enemies, so their enemies will kill them: But
they sought to kill their enemies by their testimony, as to their
antichristian spirit, and church-state; and their enemies will
kill them, as to their Christian heat and fervency of mind; and
also as to their Christian church-state. So that, (at least so
I think,) there will be such ruins brought both upon the spirit
of Christianity, and the true Christian church-state, before this
Antichrist is destroyed, that there will for a time scarce be
found a Christian spirit, or a true visible living church of Christ
in the world: Nothing but the dead bodies of these will be to be
seen of the nations; nor them neither, otherwise than as so many
ruinous heaps. For the love that I bear to the church of Christ,
I wish, as to this, I may prove a false prophet: But this looks
so like the text, and also so like the dispensations of God with
his church of old, that I cannot but think it will be so. For the
text, I have spoken to that already; wherefore I will now present
you with some things that look like parallel cases.