“The little book” has been shown to contain such extensive and important events as to justify the solemnity accompanying its delivery to the apostle.—­He now resumes the subject which had been interrupted at the close of the ninth chapter.—­The “great voices in heaven” represent the expressions of joy by the saints on hearing the voice of the last of the trumpets, as assuring them of the happy change in the moral condition of the world, which they had been warranted to expect by God’s “servants the prophets” from the days of old, (ch. x. 7.) The great, the universal change consists in this:—­“The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.”  The English supplement,—­“the kingdoms,” is justified and required, equally by the sense and the laws of syntax:  and he is a deceiver, if a scholar, who insists upon any other, to supply the ellipsis.  Indeed, the omission of similar supplements, has occasioned needless obscurity to the unlearned in other parts of this book. (See chs. xix. 10; xxii. 9.) The greatest of all revolutions consists in restoring church and state to their scriptural foundation,—­transferring both from allegiance to “the god of this world,” (Matt. iv. 8; Luke iv. 5, 6;) to their rightful owner,—­“the Lord and his Anointed.” (Ps. ii. 2, 8.) When this desirable epoch arrives, for which the persecuted witnesses have long and fervently prayed, (ch. vi. 10,) gospel ministers and Christian magistrates will seek to do the will, and aim at the glory of God.—­It is painful and pitiable to hear learned and pious men often pray,—­“That the kingdoms of this world may soon become the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”  This is to “ask amiss,”—­to miss the promise; for no such promise is on record.  The groundless conception confounds the revealed distinctions in the Godhead,—­the Father with the Mediator; and it would subvert Jehovah’s moral empire, annihilating the eternal principle of representative identification!  But those good men “mean not so, neither do their hearts think so.”  They ought, however, to be more careful and diligent in “searching the Scriptures.”—­If the scriptural significance of this joyful announcement “in heaven” were better understood by gospel ministers generally, a chief barrier would be removed, which now obstructs the advent of the millennium.  Would they but cease, their hearers might more readily cease, to “wonder after the beast.”  But we may not anticipate.

“He, (Christ,) shall reign for ever and ever.”  When the seventh trumpet, the third woe, shall have accomplished its object, in the utter destruction of immoral power, and the 1260 years shall have come to an 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.)