events, that change the position of the Church, and the last events on earth relative to the Jews, begin to have their course. The providential agents, as far as the moral prophetic earth is concerned, and the beasts, therefore, at this point, as we have said, are thereupon taken up.
The Apostle now traces equally from its origin, the earthly circumstances of the power through which Satan operates;[1] and (as in the previous chapter) he first gives us characteristically the sub-
- ↑ Specially in his workings, in these last events.
administration of their order. But the war in heaven, and the consequent casting down of Satan to earth, do alter altogether the relative position of the Church, heaven, and earth. The direct administrative exercise of all this is deferred for three years and & half, to give time for the ripening of God’s purposes, the separation of the remnant of the Jews in their tribulation, and the full satanic rising of the earth against heaven: but heaven could announce its joy at once, and woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea; but the administration not being yet changed, things otherwise went on unrebuked, until the earth being worse far by this, and in Satanic energy enlisted against heaven, the Son of Man has to take the power into His own hands, and the administration itself is changed. Then begins the administration of the world to come, whereof we speak. This is a most important, and Scripture speaks of it as a very solemn, event. It is what I apprehend is called the end; “Then shall the end come.” Sinai was the manifest beginning; though there were other points connected with it in the world and earth, to wit, Noah and Nebuchadnezzar.
