Ver. 1. Go your ways] A proof of the divine calling of the ministers of the gospel. This commission came out of the temple, as obtained by the prayers of the saints. Pour out the vials] [See Trapp on “Re 15:7”] Upon the earth] Upon Antichrist and his adherents, Roma facta est ex aurea ferrea, ex ferrea terrea, Rome was made from golden to iron and from iron to dirt, said one of her own favourites. It is said, Revelation 12:16, that the earth helped the woman; and yet here that the vials of God’s wrath were poured out upon the earth; to teach us, saith one, that men may be useful for the public, and yet not freed from God’s wrath. But that by-the-by only.
Ver. 2. And the first went] They went not all at once. Note the patience of God, waiting men’s return unto him. Upon the earth] Antichrist’s footstool, his branded slaves. A noisome and grievous sore] The French disease, say some; the devil’s disease, say others, viz. spite and envy at the Reformation wrought in Bohemia, Germany, England, &c., upon the discovery of the Papists’ hypocrisy and filthiness.
Ver. 3. Upon the sea] The popish council (called a sea, from the concourse thereunto from all parts), that of Trent especially, with their deadly decrees, making the traditions of the Church the rule of faith, &c. And these deadly decrees were written with the blood of heretics. Died in the sea] As the fishes of Jordan do as soon as they fall into the Mare mortuum, Sea of Death and as the fishes in the River Nile did, when the waters thereof were turned into blood.
Ver. 4. Upon the rivers, &c.] The persecutors and impostors, the Jesuits especially, who have lately added twelve new articles (by the authority of Pope Pius IV) raised out of the Council of Trent, and added to the Nicene Creed, to be received with others as the true catholic faith, to be believed by as many as shall be saved. And those that receive them not, are not suffered to live among them. This is worse than the six articles in Henry VIII’s time, that whip with six cords, as they called it. See these twelve articles in the Epist. prefixed to Bishop Jewel’s works.
Ver. 5. The angel of the waters] The same that poured forth his vial upon the waters, Revelation 16:4. Thou art righteous] God’s judgments are sometimes secret, always just, and so to be acknowledged. We shall one day see the reason of all, and say as Jehu did, 2 Kings 9:36.
Ver. 6. For they have shed] As Minerius that monster, the cruel Duke of Alva, bloody Bonner, the Guises, and other of the pope’s champions. Duke d’Alva, boasted of it, that he had put 36,000 Protestants to death; but they were rescued by the goodness of God and by the prowess of Queen Elizabeth, and now they are got from under the altar, as Revelation 16:7. (Acts and Mon.; Camden.) Thou hast given them blood to drink] As Tomyris dealt by Cyrus, the Parthians by Crassus, the Romans by those Jews that cried out, “His blood be upon us,” &c., as our laws do by the priests and Jesuits, and those that receive them, proceeding against such as traitors to the state. The putting out of the French king’s eyes, who promised before with his eyes to see one of God’s true servants burned; the death of Charles IX of France, author of the Parisian massacre, by exceeding bleeding at sundry parts of his body; who seeth not to be the just hand of God upon them? This Charles beholding the bloody bodies of the butchered Protestants, in that execrable massacre, and feeding his eye upon that woeful spectacle, breathed out this bloody speech, Quam bonus est odor hostis mortui! How sweet is the smell of a slain enemy! and shortly after breathed out his accursed soul, Inter horribilium blasphemiarum diras, saith a historian, tantam sanguinis vim proieciens, &c., after that Beza had forewarned him (but in vain) by that verse, “ Tu veto Herodes sanguinolente time. ” So Julian, Attila, Felix of Wurtemburg, Henry III of France, stabbed in the same chamber wherein he, then being Duke of Anjou, had contrived the French massacre. So let thine enemies perish, O Lord. “ Talia quisque luat, qualia quisque facit! ” “Let everyone be paid according to his deeds.” See the Mirror or Looking Glass both for Saints and Sinners, set forth by my most loving and highly honoured friend, Mr Sam. Clarke, pastor and preacher of the word at Bennett Fink, London; unto whom not only I give thanks for his help in this publication, but also all the Churches that shall get good thereby.
Ver. 7. And I heard another] That in the mouth of two witnesses this truth might be established. Let God be justified, and every mouth stopped. Out of the altar] Under which lie the souls of those that were slain for the testimony of Jesus, Revelation 6:9. [See Trapp on “Re 16:6”]
Ver. 8. Upon the sun] The pope’s supremacy, say some, the Scriptures, say others, by the light whereof they are laid open to the world (dancing naked in a net, and yet not seeing their own nakedness, as Mr Philpot, martyr, told Chadsey), and by the dint whereof, “God smites the earth”; Isaiah 11:4, that is, the consciences of those popelings, glued to the earth. He even “hews them by his prophets, and slays them by the words of his mouth,” Hosea 6:5. But this interpretation touching the Scriptures some hold to be dangerous; because upon what subject soever these vials fell, the wrath of God fell together with them upon the same, Revelation 16:1; they understand therefore by sun the house of Austria, or the highest authority that holds on Rome.