Many of the combatants fell in the conflict, "resisting unto blood, striving against sin." "They loved not their lives unto the death." They could give no stronger evidence of love to Christ and truth. Their faithful contendings constituted their testimony. This testimony is called in the 17th verse, "the testimony of Jesus Christ." Does this mean that it _belongs_ to Christ? or that it _treats_ of him? The language may probably be taken in either sense, or as embracing both. It is Christ's testimony, as he is "the faithful and true Witness, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession;" or it may be understood as bearing upon Christ in his person, offices and work. In either sense his faithful disciples enjoy intimate communion with himself, sharing the honour of his victories, (v. 5.) Therefore let the heavens rejoice in prospect of _final_ victory, (ch. xviii. 20.) 12. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. 13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast into the earth, he persecuted the woman, which brought forth the manchild. Vs. 12, 13.--Here is a note of warning. The dragon, though ejected from the symbolic heaven, the seat of imperial and ecclesiastic power, is not yet bound with the great chain, (ch. xx. 1, 2.) His late defeat has only incensed his rage, "as a bear robbed of her whelps." But the special reason assigned for his "great wrath" is, "because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." How does the devil come to this knowledge? Is he omniscient! No. Was he joint-counsellor with the Most High? No. (Isa. xl. 13, 14; Rom. xi. 34.) He must have derived this knowledge from revelation; and from some instances in Scripture, we might infer that the devil is more skilled in theology, especially in prophecy, than many, if not most modern interpreters. In the time of our Lord's humiliation he quoted and applied to him a prophecy in the 91st psalm, (v. 11, 12.) He also dreaded being tormented,--"before the time." (Matt. viii. 29:) from which it appears that he reasons of the "times and the seasons" as revealed in the Bible. But by the phrase, "a short time," the devil understood,--and we are to understand,--not the time to transpire till the end of the world; but, the time intervening between his ejectment out of heaven, and the overthrow of Antichrist, when he is to be bound. Now, we may learn from the _devil's calculation_, that all those learned and famous divines, especially of the prelatic church of England, "do greatly err, not knowing the Scriptures;" who say, that the dragon was cast out of the symbolic heaven _in the time of Constantine!_ The space of duration _from Constantine till the millennium_, cannot be relatively "short," under the New Testament dispensation. The time of