ection of
the witnesses in the 11th chapter is a spiritual and mystical
resurrection in the persons of their successors; the heaven to which
they were exalted is a mystical heaven: and just so of those beheaded
and advanced, after their resurrection, to positions of civil and
ecclesiastic power as in this 20th chapter. Thus exalted, and ruling in
the fear of God, they become a terror to evil doers, and a praise to
them that do well. (Rom. xiii. 3.) Then shall be realized the glorious
predictions of Isaiah and the Sweet Psalmist of Israel. (Isa. xi. 1-9;
Ps. lxxii. 1)

7. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall
be loosed out of his prison.

8. And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four
quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle:
the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

9. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp
of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God
out of heaven, and devoured them.

Vs. 7-9.--"Satan shall be loosed out of his prison."--The Lord Christ
will remove the restraint which had repressed the chief enemy during the
thousand years, that the Faithful and True Witness may give a final
testimony to the moral universe, that neither the philosophy of proud
man, nor the law of Moses,--no, nor the ordinances of the gospel, will
ever change the nature of a sinner:--That neither judgments nor mercies
have any efficacy to subdue the stubborn will, or renew the desperately
wicked heart of man; and that it is a righteous thing with God to render
tribulation to them that trouble his saints and insult his Majesty.

Thus released "for a little season," the prime enemy goes out as before
to "deceive the nations." He is successful. "The rest of the dead," who
lived not again during the 1000 years, at once re-appear in the persons
of their genuine successors. They are the children of them that killed
the witnesses;--the seed of the serpent aiming a last fatal stroke at
the seed of the woman.--They are called "Gog and Magog;" and because of
the identity of names, many have supposed them to be the same as those
enemies of the people of God described by Ezekiel, (chs. xxxviii.,
xxxix.) This view is, however, without sanction in the Scriptures. The
characters are mystical according to the uniform structure of the
Apocalypse. Ezekiel's Gog and Magog come from the "north quarters;"
those of John from th