inciple as the first war; but it is
conducted in a different form and place. Heaven here, is the church
general, and the serpent acts by the authority of the empire. The woman
having fled into the wilderness, the dragon's power becomes so great in
the symbolical heaven, that he aims at the entire destruction of true
religion in the world. The advocates of the true religion at this time
were the Waldenses, called by their adversaries in derision _Leonists_
and _Cathari_,--citizens of Lyons in France; and Puritans, a term of
reproach heaped upon their successors till the present day. These people
were deemed the most dangerous enemies to the church of Rome. Yet the
reasons for their condemnation by the inquisitors, are their full
vindication in the judgment of impartial men. They are three,--"This is
the oldest sect; for some say it hath endured,--from the time of the
apostles. It is more general; for there is no country in which this sect
is not. Because when all other sects beget horror in the hearers, this
of the Leonists hath a great show of piety: they live justly before men,
and believe all things rightly concerning God; only they blaspheme the
church of Rome and the clergy." While the beast by its horns, instigated
by an apostate church, and both by the dragon, was "making havoc of the
church," represented by the Puritans: there were some even in the Romish
cloisters whose hearts God had touched, and who occasionally espoused
the cause of a virtuous minority at the hazard of life. This war _in
heaven_, conducted with various success by Bernard, Peter Waldo, John
Wickliffe and others on the European continent and in Britain, may be
pronounced by Gibbon "premature and ineffectual;" but the Captain of
salvation and his heroic followers, will give a different verdict. These
noble confessors and martyrs, under the conduct of Michael our prince,
began the struggle with the dragon, although the war did not come to its
height till the early part of the 16th century. Then it was that
"Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought
and his angels." Both parties became more visible in the symbolic heaven
before the eyes of all Christendom. Michael, (_who is like God_?) is the
well known description of Jesus Christ. (Phil. ii. 6; Heb. i. 3.) To
Daniel, while contemplating this same contest, he was made known as the
"great Prince, that standeth for the children of God's people," and long
before Daniel's t