Page:Darby - Notes on the Book of Revelations, 1839.djvu/90

 in the exercise of Satan’s power; which we cannot pass by without leaving a great blank in our knowledge of God’s mind—and consequently its train lost and the Church misled. Taking this event in this point of view, it would connect itself with the providential course of things which the Church understands in heaven, though not yet outwardly manifested; and the consequent period would be a period of years, the period being the period of her nourishing there, not the date of her flight for this providential purpose. These things are given generally in their characters, not dates, because it was a course of progressively-developed principles, although sometimes facts may have given particular dates. As regards that which takes place actually in the crisis, the facts are simple and plain.

There was war in heaven; Michael, the archangel, and his angels fought, and the dragon; and the dragon was cast out of heaven entirely and finally, out of that place of authority and power which he had held, as ruling the world—“the rulers of the darkness of this world.” As to whom Michael is, we have mention of this exalted name, in Jude, as contending with the devil; and in Daniel, as that great prince who stands up as the ruler of providential power, in favour of the Jewish people, who