The first war is waged in heaven. The allusion is obviously to the rebellion of angels, for which they were cast down from heaven, (2 Pet. ii. 4.) The contest is the same in principle 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 time, had "contended with the devil." (Jude v. 9.) "Christ and Belial" are therefore the two opposing leaders of the armies. In other words, Christ mystical and the devil incarnate are the belligerents; and we know that "greater is he that is in the saints, than he that is in the world." (1 John iv. 4.) The result of the war is not doubtful.