James Durham, in his extensive lectures on Revelation (Chapter 6, Lecture III) observes:
The persecutions of the Church of God are particularly ordered as well as the preaching of the Gospel, and the thriving and flourishing of the Church. This horse hath a rider, that hath his armor and a sword given to him, and it is told what he shall do, he shall take peace from the earth, go so far and no further: yea, there is a more particular commissionating of this nor the former, to point out that there is a particular hand guiding the sufferings of the Church and people of God. See it in Job, how in all the commissions Satan getteth, he is straitly bounded and limited. If the world rage at Christ and his followers and persecute, yet that horse is not without a rider, and a bridle, and the sword he carrieth is limited, it cannot hurt a hair of the head of any but as it is commissionated, The hairs of your head are all numbered (Matthew 10:[30]). Persecution cometh not without a particular commission, more than one is converted without the influence of his Spirit. He that guideth the one, guideth the other: and our Lord Jesus reigneth now as before.