end, no other successful combination shall ever again be permitted to
assail and harass the city of the Lord:--"of his government there shall
be no end." (Dan. vii. 27.) "All dominions shall serve and obey him."
The final enterprise of Gog and Magog shall not succeed, (ch, xx. 7-9.)


16. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God, on their
seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,

17. Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and
wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power,
and hast reigned.

18. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of
the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldst give reward
unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear
thy name, small and great; and shouldst destroy them which destroy the
earth.

Vs. 16-18.--These verses give us a glimpse of the times following the
last woe till the end of the world. The "elders," the
representatives,--not of the ministry, as prelates dream, but of the
collective body of God's people, now that they are emancipated from a
longer and more cruel bondage than that of their fathers in the literal
Egypt, "give thanks to God" for the display of his "great power" in
their deliverance. Many times had he made bare his holy arm in past ages
on behalf of his people: but this is in their eyes the most signal
display of his power. "Thou hast taken to thee thy great power."--He now
exercises his power over the nations, which was his before; their
"anger" in the time of their rebellion is now repressed,--Messiah's