second beast, not the false prophet, who sought to make them worship the image of the first; but here he has the character of the false prophet, so that thus far (i.e. in principle) the victory had been obtained and could be celebrated, by the Spirit, for the Church. But when we come to a more positive fulfilment of judgment, and the actual bringing it into effect, on the separation of the saints out of the scene, and the closing the testimony of grace which gathered into the heavenlies, then there must be something more distinct, something which makes way for the eastern kings to take their part in the great catastrophe. The barrier and resources of the western Roman empire were dried up, so that the way for this coming in of the kings of the east was prepared. Thereon it is, that: the unclean spirits go out, to gather the kings of the whole world to the battle of the great day of God Almighty.
The fourteenth had given, so to speak, the ecclesiastical dealings of the Lord; and testimony in grace was there. In the fifteenth, we have the separation of the saints appropriated in the heavenlies; and then, in the sixteenth, the judgment on the earth, reaching primarily those who had received the mark: all this in relation to God,—subjection
