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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Revelation 18:24 - 18:24
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In the rubbish of Rome, when destroyed, will be found the blood of all those holy servants of God, whether ministers of the gospel, or professors of it, who ever since the year 606, when the pope came first to his power, have been put to death for the testimony of Christ, and a faithful adherence to the purity of doctrine by him delivered, the purity of worship by him prescribed and directed, or the purity of discipline by his direction set up. As it is storied, that upon the dissolution of abbeys, and monasteries, and nunneries here in England, there were found in holes of walls, and ponds, the skulls and bones of many infants, the supposed bastards of those fathers: so, though men cannot or will not see it now, yet when the papacy shall have its period, men shall understand, that no prophet nor righteous man hath violently been put to death for the truth out of Rome, that is, out of the jurisdiction and influence of Rome; but though it may be they have been no professed papists that have been the cause or instruments of their death, yet they have done it as influenced from that bloody city; and the principles have been perfectly popish and antichristian which madly hurried them on to such cruelties. It was one of Luthers reasons why he would have none put to death for heresy, (as they call it), because he would have this particular character reserved for that antichristian synagogue.—But ah, Lord Jesus! When shall these things be? Or who shall live when the wise providence of God shall effect them, to join with the whole church, both triumphant and militant, in the song which we have prophesied of upon this occasion in the next chapter.
It is not for us to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power, Act_1:7.