The description is large in the former part of the chapter. It would take up a great deal of time to unfold that ; but because I have divers other things to speak of, I will pass that by.
The judgment of God upon the beast and whore, is set down partly in the verse before the text : ' The ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast shall hate the whore, and make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put into their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree to give up their kingdoms to the beast,' &c.
Here the judgment is set down, what it is and by whom it shall be : by the ten horns, that is, the ten kings. And, secondly, what they shall do ; and that is set down in order.
First, These ten horns, these ten kings, western kings, ' they shall hate the whore.'
Hatred is the beginning of all actions that are offensive ; for it is the strongest and stiflest afiection of ill, as love is the strongest of good affec- tions. ' They shall hate the whore ;' it is not only anger, but hatred.
'They shall make her desolate and naked:' that is the second degree. They shall leave her; they shall strip this strumpet of her ornaments and strength, whereby she set out herself.
' They shall eat her flesh:' that is the third. That is, what they have given her before to enrich her withal, that which made her in such well liking, that which commended her, that which is her living, the riches of the pope's clergy, gotten, most of it, by ill means, they shall take from her.
But that is not all, but there is a higher degree than all this : ' they shall burn the whore with fire.'
So that in the foregoing verse you see is set down what the judgment is, and who shall be the executioners of this judgment.
But why must all this come to pass ? He riseth to the highest cause : * God hath put into their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree with one consent to give their kingdoms to the beast.' God afterwards put into their minds to hate the beast.
So that in this verse is the severity and the mercy of God, his justice and his goodness. His severity in putting into the hearts of these kings to agree with one consent to give up their kingdoms to the beast. A great judgment so to besot them. But here is a limitation of that severity at last, till the time come, until the word of God shall be fulfilled; that is, until they shall cease to be thus deluded by the bishop of Rome, and then they shall begin to hate the whore as much as ever they were deluded by her, ' and shall eat her flesh, and consume her with fire.'
For the explication of these words, they being somewhat hard, I will spend a little time to unfold them. And, first, I must shew who is this beast.
* For God hath put into their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree to give up their kingdoms to the beast.'
The beast is mentioned in three places in the Revelation : in the ninth chapter there is mention of the beast coming out of the bottomless pit ; and in the thirteenth, of the beast that rose out of the sea ; and here in
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this seventeenth, of a scarlet- coloured beast, * having seven heads and ten horns.'
The beast, in a word, is the state of Rome, sometime under the heathenish emperors, sometime under the pont,ificality. The question is, Whether the beast here spoken of be the state of Rome under the Roman persecuting emperors before Christianity prevailed much, or the state of Rome under the usurpation of the bishop of Rome ?
I answer, undoubtedly it is here meant of the state of Rome as it is upheld, the whore ; the beast, that beast ; for it is meant here of one that seduced by lying miracles, of one that should come in a mystery, of one that should deal with fornication and such courses.
Now heathenish Rome, it overcame men by violence and by force, and not by whorish insinuations, by drawing them on to idolatry. It is said in the fifth verse that upon her forehead was a name written, ' Mystery, Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots.' Babylon in a mystery, and this mystery is a great word too with them. The mystery of the mass ; in everything there is a mystery ; all their ceremonies are mysteries. This word ' mystery ' therefore, in the forehead of the whore, sheweth what beast it is that is here meant.
It is observed by divers writers, that in the frontlet of the pope's diadem there is written this name, ' Mysterium,' as in Julius the Second's time ; but afterwards, when they smelled that he was construed thereby to be the very whore, they razed out that, and put in Julius Secundus, &c.*
' And she sits upon many waters.' * She sits.' Mark, the Spirit of God will not sufler us to err. What is the regiment f of the pope called ? 'Sitting.' Such a pope sat so long; the whore sits in the very phrase. And what is the seat called ? The see of Rome, the see of antichrist. Divers other particular things there are to shew that he means Rome, that is, the state of Rome under the bishop of Rome, to be the beast here spoken of.