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-trumpet,"
the "vintage" and the last "vial;" and immediately precedes the
introduction of the millennium. "The remnant of the woman's seed" are so
called with reference to those of her offspring who had suffered death
under pagan and papal Rome, (ch. vi. 9.) Perhaps also we may suppose the
number to be comparatively few at the time of the last war with the
dragon; as during the whole period of the 1260 years, it was the aim of
the dragon, through his instruments, to wear out the saints of the Most