Ver. 1. And I stood] Where I might best see the beast that came out of the sea. I saw a beast] The Church, flying into the wilderness from the dragon, falls upon this beast, which is nothing better than the dragon under a better shape. Sic aliud ex alio malum. This beast is that Antichrist of Rome. Rise up] Not all at once, but by degrees. Out of the sea] Out of the bottomless pit, Revelation 11:7 2Th 2:9. Having seven heads] To plot. And ten horns] To push. Craft and cruelty go always together in the Church’s enemies. The asp never wanders alone; and those birds of prey go not without their mates, Isaiah 34:16. And upon his horns] The kings that are the pope’s vassals. See Revelation 17:11. These are the props of his power. The name of blasphemy] This is his true name; his pretensed name is mystery.
Ver. 2. Like unto a leopard] Which is the female among the panthers, the property whereof is, as Pliny telleth us, with her sweet smell to allure the beasts unto her, hiding her terrible head, till she hath them within her reach, and then teareth them in pieces. Just so dealeth Rome with her unhappy proselytes. The Papacy is an alluring, tempting, bewitching religion. No sin past, but the pope can pardon it; none to come, but he can dispense with it, Etiamsi per impossibile, matrem Dei quis vitiasset, said Tecelius. As the feet of a bear] Which stands firm on her hinder feet, and fights with her fore feet; so doth the Papacy with its canons, decrees, traditions, &c. As the mouth of a lion] Wide, ravenous, roaring, and insatiable. And the dragon gave him his power] This bargain was offered to Christ, Matthew 4:8-10, but he would none of it. The bramble in Jotham’s parable thought it a goodly thing to reign; so did not the vine and fig tree.
Ver. 3. One of his heads as it were wounded] Either by the invasion of the Goths; or by that fatal schism in the Church of Rome, A.D. 1378, when there sat three popes at once for 40 years together: or by the falling away of the Protestants from the Popedom, from the days of Wycliffe, John Huss, the Waldenses, Luther, to this present. Bellarmine bewails the business, that ever since we began to count and call the pope Antichrist, his kingdom hath greatly decreased. (Lib. iii. de Papa Rom. cap. 21.) And Cotton the Jesuit confesses, that the authority of the pope is incomparably less than it was; and that now the Christian Church is but adminutive. And his deadly wound was healed] By that false prophet, Revelation 13:11, that is, by the Sorbonists, Jesuits, Trent fathers, and other Popish surgeons. The Jesuits give out that the devil sent out Luther, and God raised up them to resist him; but great is the truth, and will prevail, when all falsehood shall fall to the ground. It is but a palliate cure we here read of. And all the world] sc. Of Roman Catholics. Wondered] Or had wondered till the beast was wounded.
Ver. 4. And they worshipped] Admiration bred adoration. Idolatrous Papists are worshippers of the devil; whom though in word they defy, yet in deed they deify. Who is like unto the beast?] Papa potest omnia, quae Christus potest, saith Hostiensis; The pope can do whatsoever Christ can do; yea, and more too, it should seem by these wise wonderers: for who is like unto the beast? say they. Papa est plus quam Deus, saith Francis Zabarel; The pope is more than a God. And why? for of wrong he can make right, of vice, virtue, of nothing, something, saith Bellarmine. (De Pap. Rom. lib. iv.) Mosconius cannot be content to derive papa from papae, the interjection of admiring, because he is stupor mundi, the world’s wonderment (that ye may know him to be the beast here mentioned), but he must style him the King of kings and Lord of lords, having ruledom over all rational creatures, Dulia adorandus. (De Majestat. Militant. Ecclesiastes 1:1)
Ver. 5. And there was given unto him] As once was to Antiochus, that little antichrist, Daniel 7:25. What cracks the pope makes of his unlimited power and prerogatives; who knows not? what blasphemies he belcheth out of the fable of Christ, of eating his pork, Al despito di Die, in despite of God; of suffering himself to be styled “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world,” as Pope Martin IV did; of drinking a health to the devil, as another of them did, who hath not heard? Baronius, in the year 964, reckoning up certain of the popes, calleth them monsters, an abomination of desolation in God’s temple, &c. Cardinal Benno saith of Pope Hildebrand, that he was a blasphemer, a murderer, a whore master, a necromancer, a heretic, and all that is naught. The Church of Rome (saith another of their own writers) had deserved now for a long time no better of God than to be ruled by reprobates. Marcellus II, pope of Rome, said, that he could not see how any pope could be saved. (Jac. Revius, p. 275.) Forty and two months] Here Mr Brightman calculates and pitches the ruin of Antichrist upon the year 1686, or thereabouts.