woman flees a _second_ time to the place of safety, which had been
mercifully prepared for her preservation before the war began, (v. 6.)
And she is in no less peril from her deadly enemy than before.

The "two wings of a great eagle" have furnished occasion to many fertile
minds for indulging in fanciful conjectures. To such persons nothing
occurs answerable to the symbol but some emblem of imperial power or
national sovereignty. And because the eagle was the visible symbol on
the military banner of Rome, it is conjectured that "the eastern and
western empires afforded protection to the church!" Why, the empire, in
both its wings, was the deadly enemy of the church, as we have already
seen! (ch. xi. 7.) Alas! what absurdities result from political bias!
The unlettered Christian will readily perceive under the emblem in the
text, a plain allusion to the gracious interposition of the church's
Redeemer in the days of old. "Ye have seen what I did unto the
Egyptians, and how I bare you on _eagles' wings_, and brought you unto
myself." (Exod. xix. 4.) Thus the Lord delivered his people and brought
them into a literal wilderness on their way to the promised land of
liberty. And now in a time of equal danger, he will "set his hand again
the second time" to deliver his people. He who delivered them from so
great a death as Pharaoh threatened, doth still deliver: in whom his
saints have ground to trust that he will still deliver them, (2 Cor. i.
10) The great and beneficial change accomplished among the nations by
the reformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whereby the
dragon was hurled from seats of ecclesiastical and civil power, did not
materially change the position of the "two witnesses." The time had not
yet come when they were to be called up into the symbolic heaven. They
must continue to prophesy till the close of the appointed period of 1260
years. Till the expiration of that definite period the true church of
Christ is not to be permanently established in any nation of the earth.