The Sixteenth Chapter

THE LAST TWO VIALS, following the execution of the five first in v. 1 — 11, do fall on the beast, (the Pope and his adherents,) whom God plagues by degrees, as he did the Egyptians, until the fifth vial falling eminently on Rome, the seat of the beast, so darkens his kingdom and despoils it of its glory and power, (although it may remain for Christ himself at his coming, under the seventh vial, to have the last blow at him, and the full glory of the conquest,) as that the period of his power to do, c. xiii. for forty-two months, is there set, and the date of his lease expired: these therefore being further off to come, (the seventh vial and the preparation unto it, from v. 13, belonging to, and immediately making way for the kingdom of Christ,) I shall but briefly touch upon and despatch them first: the others, (especially the fourth and fifth,) concerning these times, and chiefly serving for the opening of the eleventh chapter, 1 shall treat more largely upon.

618 THE FIRST FIVE VIALS. REV. XVI. 1 — 11.

THE SIXTH VIAL, v. 12, is “upon the great river Euphrates” (i. e. the first seat of the Turk, [c. ix. 14, Is. viii. 7,] which the sixth trumpet left standing in the east,) which is to be” dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared and so the Jews go to re-possess their own land, as in Isa. xii. 13 — 16.

THE SEVENTH VIAL, v. 17, is general, upon “the air” or whole power of Satan, (Eph. n. 2,) all the world over: The relics both of Turk and Pope, and of all the church’s enemies everywhere, (as in v. 14,) mustering all their forces against the Christians in the west and the Jews in the east, and being overcome by Christ himself and his armies, (as in c. xix. 11 — 21,) explain this last vial on the world; the fifth vial, (the most eminent on the beast,) being explained in v. 18. Now for the true understanding of

THE FIRST FIVE VIALS, upon the beast Antichrist and his adherents, I shall premise these seven things: 1st, Their times began with the first separation from Rome in c. xiv. 6, and thus contain all those steps and degrees of ruining Antichrist, first and last, from the church’s onset to come out and separate from this Egypt; to whose plagues the first three vials allude, as in the next premise: Besides, All these discoveries of the whore’s nakedness, and the falling off of these kingdoms from her, (although they for a time should begin to court her again,) must surely be reckoned among the vials, being almost as great plagues as will yet befall her, except that of her last ruin: Again, In the vintage of c. xiv. the angel of the fourth vial is mentioned, the times after which must belong to the three preceding vials; and the Holy Ghost hath not left us without some character to discern the time of their beginning, whether at the harvest, or at the voices of these angels that made the separation; the song of the church, in the story of that chapter, when the vials begin, being (as in c. xv. 4,) “Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for all nations shall come and worship before thee, for thy judgments are made manifest,” &c. this being one of the two meanings, That the plagues of these vials now beginning, God’s judgment are being made manifest. Now the voice and message of the first angel, (who began the separation from Antichrist, and the preaching everywhere,) unto all nations (c. xiv. 6, 7,) is, “Fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment Is come; and worship him who hath made heaven and earth:” .his was but the beginning to warn Antichrist and his company of the vials’ approaching; but by the second angel’s voice we find that the first vial began as the effect of these two angels’ preaching; for that voice not only calls Rome Babylon, and discovers the Pope to be Antichrist, but says “Babylon is fallen, is fallen:” i. e. the foundation of her ruin is laid; the superstitious world not before suspecting this “man of sin,” 2 Thes. ii. 3 — 10: so the western empire is reckoned as taken away at the beginning

REV. XVI. 1 — 11.] THE FIRST FIVE VIALS. 619

of the wars of the Goths, and when the first of the ten kingdoms was broken off from the empire, A.D. 410, (as in p. 603;) and the Pope may from that time be reckoned to rise with his ten horns, though his ten kingdoms were not fully erected for forty years after, and the power of the western empire not wholly extinct till seventy years after: So Isa. xxi. 9, speaks in the same words of old Babylon, when the Medes tfirst revolted, and began to set up a kingdom of their own, which was afterwards thereby to destroy her: Thus the first open and professed revolts from Rome made by our predecessors, laid the foundation of her fall in this beginning of the first of the vials ordained to ruin her. 2dly, These vials are expressed in allusion to the plagues of Egypt, which at first not so great, ended in the Egyptians’ being drowned in the red sea, as these terminate in the subversion of Antichrist’s seat: The first is upon the earth, effecting a very noisome and grievous sore on those with the beast’s mark, in allusion to the dust thrown in the air, causing a botch on man and beast in Egypt: The second is on the sea, and “on the waters thereof;” and as the Egyptian rivers were turned by Moses into blood, so The third doth also turn to blood “the rivers and fountains;” both being bloody vials: The fourth is upon the sun, and “tormenteth men with fire, like Sodom, (as the Antichrist-state is called, c. xi. 5, 6;) or in allusion to Num. xvi. 35. 3dly, As in the trumpets the Holy Ghost compared the empire to a world, so the several parts of the beast’s kingdom to be plagued are here compared to several parts of the world: and as the first four trumpets, (on the earth, sea, rivers, and sun,y were so many degrees of ruining the western empire, so are these vials of ruining the beast’s world or empire: and as it was there shewed, that kingdoms or bodies of men are in scripture usually compared to a world, with its heaven and earth and sun and stars, &c. so in the Pagan and Papal empire, and its parts and divisions. 4thly, The Pope and his company in c. xiii. were resembled by a double beast, one representing the political state of the ten kingdoms, making it one body under that head; the other, the spiritual state of his church and clergy, making up a distinct body under one high-priest and spiritual head: so this his earth and rivers and sun, (the parts of these his kingdoms,) according to the analogy of this representation, may be interpreted either politically or spiritually. 5thly, The beast’s kingdom being called “spiritually, Sodom and Egypt,”in c. xi. 8, in referrence to those very plagues of the vials there enumerated, v. 5, 6; as it is a state claiming spiritual jurisdiction in spiritual things, and over “the souls of men,” (c. xviii. 13,) and in things outward and political in order to things spiritual, In Ordine Ad Spiritualia; these plagues- vials on this Egyptian and Sodomitish city must therefore be spiritual on the souls of Antichrist’s adherents, as well as outward; “the righteous Lord,” (v. 5,) proportioning

620 THE FIRST VIAL. [REV. XVI. 2.

their plagues to their sins, and so “doubling unto her double according to her works,” c. xviii. 6. It is not enough that this monarchy be ruined only outwardly; for this beast hath sinned in assuming spiritual power, pomp, and glory, as well as external dominion, in Christ’s name; she traded in spirituals, as well as “in gold and precious stones,” &c. and therefore the highest judgment in both shall befall her; as “hardness of heart” was called “a sending all God’s plagues on the Egyptians’ hearts.” I mention the first four vials especially, as enumerated in c. xi. 5, 6, where they are spiritual, as here they are outward plagues; and so both are included. 6thly, Though the vials are successive, and have a precise time for their eminent effusion and execution, yet sprinklings of the one may continue under the following; as the sores under the first vial are mentioned under the fifth, v. 11; so the blasphemy of the fourth vial is heightened under the fifth: again, some droppings of a succeeding vial may begin in the preceding, as before the strength and fulness of a storm: though the fulness of each vial hath a special time in its due order of succession. 7thly, All the plagues on the Popish party, first and last, are reducible to one of these vials; for they are “the last plagues (c. xv. 1,) in which the wrath of God is fulfilled” upon that party: and so every drop and sprinkling of wrath and vexation poured out, goes to fill up some vial or other, as a part of it.

THE FIRST VIAL, v. 2, is principally on the beast’s earth, the lowest part of his spiritual and political kingdom, and was the effect of the first two angels’ preaching, and specially the second, in c. xiv. for the preaching of the gospel and the discovery of the Pope to be that Antichrist, drew away many inferior subjects in all the ten kingdoms of his political earth; so that his authority and interest throughout Europe wras weakened, and the number of his worshippers lessened; all the world not now going after the beast without contradiction, as they were wont: This vial affected also his spiritual earth, or clergy; for by the preaching of the Waldenses, the uncleanness, idleness, and hypocrisy, of the priests, monks, and nuns, (the beast’s enchanters,) were discovered; and these cast dust in their faces, as Moses did, so that “there jell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men that had the mark of the beast” viz. his clergy, who being exempted from the civil power, are his special subjects and sworn vassals, receiving from him an indelible character by ordination, (see p. 599,) and who” tvorshiped his image? as upholders of his idolatrous doctrine: Now all those first gospellers, before Luther, made it the chief subject and end of all their writings and disputes, to render odious and vile the Pharisaical Popish clergy: Nor was this judgment merely outward, in a discovery of the shame of their hateful and abominable iniquities, thus making way in all men’s hearts for their ruin; but the light of these preachers proved a curse in order to their breaking forth in filthiness and botches;

KEY. XVI. 3 — 7.] THE SECOND AND THIRD VIALS. 621

God giving them up, in judgment for shutting their eyes against the gospel, to the curse of all uncleanuess, Sodomy &c. so as to commit all sin, and that with more greediness than ever, as did the Gentiles, in Rom. i. 24, &c.

THE SECOND VIAL, v. 3, is upon the sea, on the third angel’s preaching, &c. Luther and his followers; who being raised up to a still greater light, became a further plague both upon the political and spiritual sea of the beast, or his jurisdiction over many people, (as in p. 593,) those “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues,” in c. xvii. 15. Now after Luther’s preaching and his followers, not only particular persons (as before) were divided from the Pope, but whole nations were rent from him, (as England, Germany, Sweden, Scotland, &c.) and his sea lessened by a third part and more; some of the ten horns of the beast being wrung off, as when members are divided from the body, and “as the blood of a dead man:” and because the Popish faction could no longer, through the alteration of religion by law, live quietly, soberly, and peaceably in their idolatrous wor ship, “every living -soul died in the sea” thus divided from him; there was no free living or breathing for them in those seceding kingdoms: His spiritual sea also had a vial poured upon it, even his abominable doctrine and worship, purgatory, indulgences, merit, fyc. in which sea his merchants (the priests) had brought in gain both to themselves and to the Pope’s custom-house, c. xviii. 15. this sea is turned into putrifying blood of a corpse, so that those who, after such a clear light of the gospel, will still continue in that damnable doctrine, die and perish eternally, as again in v. 3, and as in c. xiv. 9 — 11, where the third angel preacheth, not only with the former angel, That Rome is Babylon, but That “if any worshipped the beast or his image, the same should drink of the wine of God’s wrath” in hell, where “the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever;” for they shall be sure to be all damned who know the truth but embrace it not: and this was a further spiritual judgment on them, beyond what their doctrine was unto them in former times, wherein men remaining through ignorance, many more of them were then saved than now there arc.

THE THIRD VIAL, v. 4 — 7, is upon “the rivers and fountains,” serving to enlarge, or anywise recover or sweeten his sea again by their influx. 1st. These “fountains” are the lesser springs, Kither, spiritual ones; (for when the Egyptians’ waters were turned into blood, they dug fountains and wells, which were turned by Moses into blood: and so when the Papists’ sea is be come bloody, they dig fountains of their writings to live in; their writers since the Reformation, labouring with their learning and eloquence to sweeten and make good some of their sea-waters again; [but in vain ;] our writers again confuting them and turning all into blood, as it was before; so that those among them that

022 THE FOURTH VIAL. [REV. XVI. 8, 9.

shall read both, must be convinced that they will be damned, [2 Thes. ii. 12,] if they persist still in their doctrine:) Or, temporal and political also, such as the Jesuits and others, who have attempted in all those seceded kingdoms, to restore his lost power and jurisdiction: and many of the lesser springs, (individuals among them,) have been turned into blood, by the enactment of laws, (in England, A.D. 1581 and 1605; in Holland, A.D. 1586; in France, A.D. 1584;) cutting off’ many of them, and “giving them the blood of martyrdom to drink;” so that they have a martyrology as well as we; and are justly rewarded, as cries, “the angel from the altar” (v. 7,) viz. the true worshippers and priests of the altar, whose prayers having procured these edicts, they now return praise to God’s justice in retaliating to them and on them: for “the altar’1’’ here and c. xiv. 18, may signify worship, as it doth martyrdom in c. vi. 9. 2dly, These “rivers” and greater streams, are those armadoes and navies from out of the sea of these kingdoms that continue still to uphold the beast, endeavouring to lay all kingdoms into this one sea again; as the Spaniards, sent out to regain Rome’s jurisdiction against England, A.D. 1588, and against Holland often since, but still defeated; as was also that navy, A.D. 1639, being a sprinkling of this vial still going on in those times of

THE FOURTH VIAL, “upon the sun,” v. 8, 9; and to the angelexecuter “power wets given to scorch men with fire? effecting their blasphemy. Here is, The effusion of this vial on the sun, and, The scorching with Jire the beast’s adherents; which I still interpret of plagues, the one outward, the other spiritual, on the Popish party: 1st,” He poured out his vial on the sun? meaning the more illustrious light, or prince, adhering to the Popish party, and shining in his political heaven, whereof he is the great god, or Jupiter; being either the emperor, or the king of Spain; or both, as of the same house of Austria; those German wars, (then about A.D. 1639,) issuing in ruin, when the Popish party should once have had blood enough given them to drink; for the German empire was for eight centuries the most eminent principality in Europe, and in general the most staunch supporter of the Pope, whose creation it was, as set up in Charlernain, that stm in his firmament: the ruin of the emperor, his first-born, must there fore be a special plague on the the Papal seat. Mr. Mede thought this vial to have been in execution in that great prevailing of the king of Sweden against the emperor, whose glorious victories may well be a vial, if not to throw down from his heavens, yet to darken this sun, as that he should never recover his glory and splendour, though perhaps unextirpated. Others interpret this vial of the Pope’s own power and authority, temporal and spiritual, setting in obscurity, (as in Is. Ix. 20, Jer. xv. 9,) for the decretals of princes style the Pope and the emperor, the two great luminaries in heaven: but how hath this glory been waning

REV. XVI. 8, 9.] THE FOURTH VIAL. 623

inore and move in the consciences of his own vassals, and in the eyes of princes once subject? France denies the Pope that absolute power he once challenged; and the Pope hath been but the moon to the king of Spain, (borrowing light from him, and flattering other princes who once flattered him, and were excommunicated at his pleasure,) and as his chaplain made of use for his own acquiring universal monarchy. 2dly, “And power was given him (the angel, not the sun,) to scorch men with fire;” referring to a greater height of spiritual plagues inflicted on all who continued to adhere to the Pope in these his declining times, especially on those of the learned among them, who took pains to write for him, or re-introduce his authority with those European kingdoms again, where the light of the gospel shone so as to have convinced them of it long since; “their sea being turned into blood” and discovered to be corrupt; “their springs, (their writings so clearly confuted,) turned into blood” also; so that they who labour to bring in Popery again, living in those kingdoms, must resist their own light and knowledge: and to permit so presumptuous and despiteful a “rebellion against the light,” thus age after age increasing, this vial-angel hath power “to scorch men with fire” proceeding out of the mouth of the witnesses by prophesying, so that men are killed with a witness, for their wilfulness; as in c. xi. 5, will be more fully expounded. In both places the allusion is either unto the fire of Sodom, or unto that in Lev. x. 1, 2, or in Num. xvi. to which Heb x. 26 — 28 refers, as in the Supplement will be more fully expounded. That such wilful or other presumptuous sinning against knowledge, accompanied with terror, is here meant, appears also by men’s “blaspheming the name of God who hath power over these plagues:” Now blaspheming the Holy Ghost, or his workings in others, (knowing they are his works, as these here know they are his plagues,) is the very spirit of this sin; and then final impenitency is also added, as here, “they repented not:” And this plague goes on in the fifth vial, under which sinning against knowledge grows to a further height; for they are so scorched,” that they gnaw their tongues,” as men in hell. That under this vial the sin against the Holy Ghost grows very rife and common by reason of the abundance of light and conviction shining in the churches, hath long been the observation of godly men who have had senses exercised to discern spirits growing in rage and madness, beyond the supposal of any other principle that should act them in their warped and eccentric motion, and violent proceedings: and it is easy to conceive how many learned Jesuits should come to commit this sin; for bred up in their younger years in ways of devotion, they have truth and light enough to give them “a taste of the powers of the world to come,” (Heb. vi. 5,) yet after studying and discerning the truth of our writings, for worldly ends, they wilfully go against it, and despise it, being justly

624 THE FOURTH VIAL. [llEV. XVI. 8, 9.

abandoned to malicious wickednesss, and growing worse and worse under increasing light: and as the feeble light of the first vial being resisted, God gave them up to gross sins; their doc trine under the clearer shining of the second and third vial becoming more damnable, God also rose higher in his plagues, and by striking hell-fire into their consciences, sealed up reprobation unto them: and thus it became him not to leave these murderers and opposers of the saints and holy witnesses of God in all ages, till many of them were given up to this highest sinning and fullest measure of iniquity, before the final ruin of the .Popish kingdom and state; like as the Pharisees in their last age, on whom were brought the punishments of all their forefathers’ killing his prophets in Jerusalem, for the despite done by them to Christ’s ministry. But above all, it is as hard not to think, as it is hard to be thought, that such apostates are guilty of “the great transgression,” who having lived and been brought up “in the land of uprightness,” (Isa. xxvi. 10,) yet becoming of the Popish party, “will not behold the majesty of the Lord” shining round about them, but relinquish the truth they were educated in, and would bring in the worship and doctrine of the beast and whore, after so clear a light and powerful preaching so long enjoyed, and growing brighter then ever towards the latter end of the harvest and summer; yet, “speaking lies in hypocrisy,” (1 Tim. iv. 2,) they deny this to be their aim, though their deeds do manifest it, so that all the world accounts them Popish, and of the Popish faction, (thus meriting the title of “The number of his name,”) being spirits such as Rome hath not worse, in malice and enmity against God’s witnesses; for their venom, rage, subtility, and under-hand opposing the saints, do cause the godly to suspect them of that “sin unto death;” and indeed what other principle could act men so? for the Pharisees were brought up in darkness and ignorance of the righteousness of God and of the Messiah, when the ministry of John and Christ came upon them, and called upon them to acknowledge and embrace the Son, whom they never acknowledged; yet they sinned against the Holy Ghost by smothering that new light, which set up Christ alone, and put all men out of credit: But these men, (compare p. 599, &c. ) in this our age, have been brought up in the contrary truth and light; and they have both professed it, subscribed to it, and preached it; and yet they love this darkness of Popery, and embrace this cursed harlot, and would bring her into their tents “in the face of Moses and of the whole congregation,” (as in Num. xxv. 6,) and they loathe the truth of the gospel and of the faith they once received, and that in the face of the clearest sun-shine and light round about them. One would think God should destroy them visibly; but they must do a great exploit for him first; their further destiny is, to kill the witnesses for this their scorching them through the

REV. XVI. 10, 11. j THE FIFTH VIAL. 620

powerful testimony of their lives and prophecies, and so be even with them, and overcome them yet before the fifth vial comes: and though as yet they have not got a full victory, yet they are now a making vvar,and shall prevail, and banish and disperse them among tongues and nations throughout Europe. But under the fifth vial, these witnesses in the end shall again have overcome this last of all the beast’s company and champions to be overcome, “the number of his name,” and “the names of men” (ONOMATA ANTHROOPOON, c. xL 13, with xv. 2,) who shall be killed instead of the witnesses at their resurrection, as the first degree and preparation to

THE FIFTH VIAL “upon the (throne or) seat of the beast” v. 10, 1 1, which is Rome, the old seat of the dragon, the Heathenish idolatrous empire, as openly governed by Satan, and afterwards resigned to the Pope at his first rising, c. xiii. 2. The Sybils prophesied of Rome’s again becoming a sheep-cote; and the Holy Ghost, (c. xviii. 2, 21,) of her being “thrown down as a mill-stone, and no more found at all, but become the habitation of devils only, and the dwelling of every foul spirit for ever.” Of this vial we may say, “Now it speaketh plainly and not in parables,” as before, (John xvi. 29;) only as the other vials are to be taken in the largest sense, (though not spiritually or figuratively,) so I think this is: and as the second beast, (c. xiii.) is not the Pope only, but the body of the clergy under their head; so the seat of the beast may be other sees, besides the see of Rome in Italy and elsewhere, cleaving to the number and company of the beast, who are here under the fifth vial tumbled down from their usurped seats, thrones, and dignities, together with this their head, whose whole kingdom is now become “full of darkness” and obscurity: and although the Popcdom remains to be destroyed by the seventh vial, yet its glory is here reckoned as gone and taken from him; and he is now reserved alive only for a further and more glorious execution: his seven-headed kingdom is no longer accounted of, and his period is at an end with this fall of Rome.