The Saints Cry from under the Altar

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: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
Revelation 6:9,10

"The scenes which John was viewing were upon the earth, hence, in the absence of proof that any other altar is meant, it seems a

necessary conclusion that John saw the place of slaughter of the church of God by Papal Rome, where the earth has drunk up the blood of martyrs, under the figure of an altar of sacrifice.

These slain are represented as crying to God to have their blood avenged on them that dwell on the earth, the same as the voice of Abel’s blood from the ground;

Dr. Clarke, himself a believer in the conscious state of the dead, makes the following frank admission, in his notes on this chapter: “And they cried with a loud voice.” That is, their blood, like that of Abel, cried for vengeance; for we are not to suppose that there was anything like a vindictive spirit in those happy and holy souls who had shed their blood for the testimony of Jesus. We sometimes say, Blood cries for blood; that is, in the order of Divine justice, every murderer, and every murdering persecutor, shall be punished."

Luther and his associates were imbued with the spirit of this cry which went up from the earth that had drunk the blood of millions of the martyrs of Jesus slain, and they exposed the corruptions of the Papacy, which trembled before the reformers, and in 1798 AD was stripped of its civil authority. 

Thus the blood of the martyrs was avenged on those that dwelt on the earth. This has no reference to the final judgment and punishment of the wicked; but refers to the change in the condition of the Papacy." James White