Revelation 6:9 Revelation 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: under the altar It was not for treason against the emperors, but for the testimony of Jesus; and they loved not their lives unto death. \ The place where John saw them, was under the altar: the altar here may not be understood literally; for there was then no material temple, that in Jerusalem being destroyed, and the Jewish worship abolished; but this altar, metaphorically taken, doth signify the happy state, and blessed condition of the martyrs of Jesus. The altar stood in the most holy place of the temple, as being a type of Christ, who is our altar. \ This altar was typed out by the golden altar of incense, place before the Ark of the Testimony in the tabernacle. \ The Souls of them that were slain; that is, the martyrs of Jesus, whose bodies were killed, murdered and slain, for the word of God, and for the Testimony which they held. The testimony which those martyrs held, was two fold; first, negative; they would not worship idols. \ Positive; they did worship the only living God in Spirit and in truth. \ Both Eusebius and Mr. Fox, in their Histories of the Church, testify, that thousands in a day were killed for professing themselves Christians; and in that some places of Roman Empire whole churches full of Christians were burned together, and whole cities where burned for refusing to worship idols, and whole legions of soldiers were destroyed for being Christians, and worshipping God. The primitive Christians, in those times of the ten bloody persecutions of the Roman pagan tyrants, would not give their soldiers, who were sent to kill them, any xczola; that is, any old cast cloth or rag to save their lives; and when any soldier pulled or plucked any cloth of rag from them by force; they would follow the solders, crying out, and saying, they were Christians; I am a Christian, etc.