This is the prospect set before us in these words, and this the consolation of the Church under the trials that await her at the end of the age. "When the wicked spring as the grass, and all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever: but Thou, O Lord, art on high for evermore. For, lo, Thine enemies, O Lord, for, lo, Thine enemies shall perish; all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered."[479]
Babylon is fallen, not indeed in a strictly chronological narrative, for she will again be spoken of as if she still existed upon earth. But for the time her overthrow has been consummated, her destruction is complete, and all that is good can only rejoice at the spectacle of her fate. Hence the opening verses of the next chapter.
[444] Comp. chaps. xiii. 1 and xvii. 3, 7.
[445] Comp. chaps. xiii. 1 and xvii. 3.
[446] Comp. chaps. xiii. 1 and xvii. 3, 12.
[447] Comp. chaps. xiii. 1 and xvii. 8.
[448] Comp. pp. 75, 199.
[449] Chap. xvii. 12.
[450] Chap. xvii. 12.
[451] Chap. xvii. 11.
[452] Chap. xiii. 2.
[453] Chap. xii. 17.
[454] Chap. xvii. 14.
[455] Comp. p. 222.
[456] Ver. 8.
[457] Chap. i. 18.
[458] Comp. chap. xiii. 3.
[459] Chap. v. 6.
[460] Comp. chaps. vi. 13; viii. 10; ix. 1; xi. 13; xiv. 8; xvi. 19; xviii. 2.
[461] Comp. Dan. vii. 17, 23; Rev. xviii. 3.
[462] Chap. xii. 12.
[463] Dan. vii. 7, 8.
[464] Chap. xii. 13.
[465] Acts i. 7.
[466] Chaps. xiv. 8; xvi. 19.
[467] Jer. iii. 1.
[468] Micah i. 7.
[469] Matt. xxiii. 34-36.
[470] Chap. xi. 8.
[471] Isa. i. 10.
[472] Isa. i. 21.
[473] Guinness, _The Approaching End of the Age_, p. 143.
[474] Chap. xvii. 15.
[475] Comp. 2 Thess. ii. 7.
[476] John x. 16.
[477] Comp. chap. xi. 10.
[478] Chap. i. 9.
[479] Ps. xcii. 7-9.