nothing will avail the seed of the woman but the "living water" which Jesus imparted to the woman of Samaria. To him who partakes of this water, those of the dragon will be distasteful; for "it shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." (John iv. 14.) Since the middle of the seventeenth century, when by the reformation in Europe and the British Isles, the dragon was cast down from the symbolic heaven, he has been assailing in "great wrath" all ranks 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.