ks and degrees of
men, not, as before, with fire and sword, with scaffolds, gibbets,
thumb-screws,--torturing and destroying their mortal bodies, that he
might reach their immortal souls: but by bringing them together in
_voluntary associations_ on principles of the covenant of works,
subversive of the covenant of grace, and consequently aiming at the
drowning of the mystic woman. This the enemy of all righteousness has
been attempting, and with too much success, by public and professed
ecclesiastical and Christian associations; such as Jesuits, Socinians
and other self-styled Unitarians, Latter-day Saints, Mormons,--or by
combinations in secret and sworn confederacies; such as Odd Fellows,
Freemasons, Sons and Daughters of Temperance, with other affiliated
fellowships innumerable. The special subtlety of the serpent consists in
blending these two kinds of communions, so that under the name of
reform, moral and spiritual, those who fear God may be unconsciously
drawn into the snare. And alas! how many simple ones have been thus
carried away by the waters of the flood! And many strong men have been
thus cast down from their excellency. We are not to be surprised if we
find the witnesses few in our time,--the seed of the woman diminished
when the dragon makes his final attack.

17. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with
the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have
the testimony of Jesus Christ.

V. 17.--In this verse we have the last effort of the enemy, to destroy
the woman's offspring. It is the _third_ attempt, and, as we suppose, is
yet future. We cannot therefore, of course, be so exact or certain as to
the nature of this contest. Some things, however, are plain enough. The
dragon, disappointed in his efforts hitherto against the woman, so far
from ceasing the warfare, is only thereby the more exasperated. "The
dragon was wroth with the woman." Malice overcomes reason. He knows that
he cannot finally prevail,--that "no weapon formed against her shall
prosper;" yet he continues to vent his rage. The mode of attack is to be
different from what it was in the second struggle. He is said to "make
war,"--to resort to open violence, to employ the agency of the civil
power, the beast of the bottomless pit, (ch. xi. 7;) for this third and
last war, waged by the dragon agrees in time with the _slaying of the
witnesses_. This third onset agrees also with the "third woe-tru