← Back to the beginning of Revelation 17
Ver. 5. Mystery] This word mystery is in the pope’s mitre, saith Brocard the Venetian, and many more who have been at Rome, and profess to have seen it. (Dr James of the Corr. of Script. Preface.) The whole antichristian state is a mystery of iniquity, 2 Thessalonians 2:7, and is much conversant about mysteries, sacraments, ceremonies, pompous rites, &c.: murders, treasons, thefts, &c., they easily dispense with, but none of their ceremonies. Let God, say they, see to the breach of his own law; we will look to ours. Rome was raised in a mystery: she grew to her greatness insensibly and cunningly. Her bishop is both an Aemulus and an opposite to Christ; one that would seem like him, a vice-Chr ist, αντιχριστος, and yet is his chiefest adversary; this is the mystery of iniquity. See 2 Thessalonians 2:7, [See Trapp on “2Th 2:7”] Babylon the great] Rome, resembling the Assyrian Babylon in pride, idolatry, filthiness, but especially in cruelty toward the Church. See the Babylonian cruelty graphically described, Jeremiah 51:34, and make the comparison. The mother of harlots] The Church of Rome to this day delights to be styled Holy Mother Church. Holy she is in the sense that the Hebrews call harlots. And such a mother, as bastards have for their mother, by whose name they are called; the father is seldom mentioned by them.
Ver. 6. Drunken with the blood, &c.] Bishop Bonner delivered Richard Woodman, with four more, requiring of them to be but honest men, members of the Church Catholic, and to speak good of him. And no doubt (saith Woodman) he was worthy to be praised, because he had been so faithful an aid in the devil his master’s business, for he had burned good Mr Philpot the same morning. In whose blood his heart was so drunk as I suppose he could not tell what he did, as it appeared to us both before and after. For but two days before, he promised us we should be condemned that same day that we were delivered; yea, and the morrow after he sought for some of us again, yea, and that earnestly. He waxed dry after his great drunkenness; wherefore he is like to have blood to drink in hell, as he is worthy, if he repent not, &c. It is wisdom (said a certain unknown good woman in a letter to Bonner), it is wisdom for me and all other simple sheep of the Lord, to keep us out of your butcherly stall as long as we can; especially seeing you have such store already, that you are not able to drink all their blood, lest you should break your belly, and therefore let them lie still and die for hunger, &c. Thus I kept the bandogs at staves’ end (said Shetterden the martyr), not as thinking to escape them, but that I would see the foxes leap above the ground for my blood, if they can reach it. I wondered with great admiration] All things are portentous in the popedom; what monsters were Pope John XII, and Hildebrand, as Luitprandus (Lib. 6, de Reb. Gest. in Europ. in Vita Hildeb.) describes the one, and Cardinal Benno the other, both of their own side. Tertia classis continet Papas vel potius πωπους, saith Alstedius. After the thousandth year of Christ, there was nowhere less piety than in those that dwelt neare st to Rome, as Machiavel observeth. A dog tied or chained up, either to guard a house, or on account of its ferocity; hence gen. a mastiff, bloodhound. ŒD
Ver. 7. Wherefore didst thou marvel?] Nil admirari prope res est una, Numici. We wonder at things out of ignorance of the causes of them. Hinc admiratio peperit philosophiam.
Ver. 8. Was and is not] Was before the time of this revelation in the Roman government, which was afterwards usurped by the pope. A thing that the first bishops of Rome dreamed not of. And yet Tertullian (Lib. de Pudicitia) taxes the rising ambition of the popes in his time, thus: I hear, saith he, that there is an edict set forth, and that very peremptory, in these terms, Pontifex, scilicet maximus, Episcopus Episcoporum dicit, Thus saith the high priest, the bishop of bishops. (Baron. Annul. tom. 4.) Odi fastum illius Ecclesiae, I hate the pride of the Church of Rome, saith Basil. Go into perdition] Go, not run; by degrees, not all at once. He now takes long strides toward the bottomless pit; which is but a little before him, and even gapes for him. There stands a cold sweat on all his limbs already. Shall wonder] Admiration bred superstition; and illumination draws men off it. Julius Palmer, martyr, was a most obstinate Papist all King Edward’s days; and yet afterwards, in Queen Mary’s time, suffered most cruel death at the Papists’ hands at Newbury, for the most ready and zealous profession of the truth. His words to one Bullingham, walking in Paul’s after his conversion, were these; Oh that God had revealed these matters unto me in time past! I would have bequeathed this Romish religion, or rather irreligion, to the devil of hell, from whence it came. Believe them not, Bullingham, I will rather have these knees pared off than I will kneel to yonder jackanapes (meaning the rood). And yet is] In regard of that imperial power then extant, which the pope should afterwards take to himself. Applied contemptuously to a crucifix. Obs. ŒD The cross upon which Christ suffered; the cross as the symbol of the Christian faith. Now only arch. ŒD
Ver. 9. Here is the mind] q.d. Here is work for wise men to busy their brains about. Sapientia est vel codicibus vel cordibus. Wisdom is either from books or from the hearts. Seven mountains] The Jesuits cannot deny but that Rome is here pointed at, as being set upon seven hills, επταλοφος. So the ancient Rome was, whereof the present Rome is but a carcase, retaining nothing of the old but her ruins, and the cause of them her sins.
Ver. 10. And there are seven kings] That is, kinds of government. Five are fallen] Kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, tribunes. One is] i.e. The heathen emperor. And the other is not yet come] sc. The Christian emperors. A short space] sc. At Rome; for Constantine soon translated the seat of the empire to Byzantium, calling it Constantinople, and left Rome to be the pope’s nest. (Zonaras.) The Emperor Constans, nephew to Heraclius, and after him, Otho, had some thoughts to set up again at Rome, but could not; that so the kingdom of the Church foretold by Daniel might there be seated, saith Genebrard: if he had said the kingdom of Antichrist foretold by John the divine, he had hit it.
Ver. 11. He is the eighth] viz. The Pontifficality. And is of the seven] i.e. Shall exercise that monarchical power that was before in the seven heads.
Ver. 12. Are ten kings] Of ten different kingdoms, Naples, Spain, Portugal, France, Polony, Bohemia, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, and this of England, which as it was the first of the ten that submitted to the pope’s yoke, so was it the first that shook it off again in Henry VIII’s time.
Ver. 13. These have one mind] This is the unity or rather conspiracy of the Church of Rome. The Spouse only is but one, Song of Solomon 6:9. Other societies are but as the clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, they may cleave together but not incorporate one into another. There is a great deal of seeming unity under Antichrist. The Turks also have as little dissension in their religion as any. But well may that garment have no seam that hath no shape. Bellarmine notes a providence, that in the ninth age there sprang up no new heresy. But how could there, when little religion was afoot besides superstition and heresies?
Ver. 14. The Lamb shall overcome them] 1. With a spiritual victory, by a sweet: subjection, at least by a conviction of their consciences. 2. With an external victory, as the Imperialists in Germany, the Papists here.
Ver. 15. Are peoples] Fitly called waters for their instability and impetuosity.
Ver. 16. These shall hate] As base fellows use to hate their harlots when they find them false. And shall make her desolate] Shall deny to defend her. And naked] By denying her maintenance, and laying her open to the world by their remonstrances. King Henry VIII and the French king, some half a year before their death, were at a point to have utterly rooted the bishop of Rome out of their realms, and to exhort the emperor to do the same, or else to break off from him. The realm of France was ready (upon the pope’s refusal to rebless King Henry IV upon conversion to them) to withdraw utterly from the obedience of his See, and to erect a new patriarch over all the French Church. The then archbishop of Burges was ready to accept it; and but that the pope, in fear thereof, did hasten his benediction, it had been effected, to his utter disgrace and decay. (Spec. Europ.) And shall eat her flesh] Be so bitterly bent against her, that they could find in their hearts to tear her with their teeth. See Job 19:22. We read of two notable thieves in the kingdom of Naples (the one called himself Pater noster, and the other Ave Maria) that had slain 116 men at different times and in different places. These two were at length taken and tormented to death by the command of the magistrate, with hot burning pincers, &c., and made to die piecemeal. It were but reason that Christian princes should use like zeal and severity against that grand soul-murderer the pope. And burn her with fire] For an old bawd. It is reported that in Meroe, the priests of Jupiter had so bewitched the people with their superstition, that they would sometimes send to the king of Ethiopia for his head; which was never denied them, till it came to King Erganes, who upon so insolent a demand slew them all, and took away their priesthood. Why is not the same now done to the bridge maker of Rome? fig. He who or that which panders to any evil design or vicious practice. ŒD
Ver. 17. For God hath put] As he sent Nebuchadnezzar against Tyre, Alexander against Asia, and Attila against Rome, who surnamed himself the World’s Scourge; so he will one day send these kings against Rome. It had been burnt when Charles V took it, but that the soldiers were kept in by a kind of violence. God’s time was not yet come for that purpose.
Ver. 18. Is that great city] Rome, that radix omnium malorum, the base of all evil. This is confessed by Bellarmine, Ribera, Alcasar, and other Jesuits. The Rhemists are so straited, that they know not which way to turn them, or how to deny so clear a truth, which yet they are not willing to acknowledge. The wit of heretics will better serve them to devise a thousand shifts to elude the truth, than their pride will suffer them once to yield and acknowledge it.