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REVELATION CHAPTER 9
Rev_9:1 At the sounding of the fifth angel a star falleth from
heaven, to whom is given the key of the bottomless pit,
Rev_9:2-11 he opens the pit, and there come forth locusts like
scorpions, who have power to hurt men for a time.
Rev_9:12 The first woe past.
Rev_9:13-21 At the sounding of the sixth angel four angels which
were bound are loosed, and bring great plagues on the
earth for a limited time.
And the fifth angel sounded; the fifth of the seven angels mentioned Rev_8:2, to whom were given seven trumpets. It denoteth the beginning of a new period of calamities and miseries to the earth, or to the church.
And I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: what this star falling from heaven means, is not easy to resolve. Those who think it the devil, once a star, but fallen, forget that John is not here told a story of what was in the beginning of the world, but what should be, and that five hundred years after Christ’s coming. And the same reason holds against those who think those seditious persons are meant, who did so much mischief in and about Jerusalem during the siege; this had been to have revealed to John those things which he knew were done many years before. Amongst those who think some particular eminent minister of the church, who apostatized, is meant, those seem to me to judge better, who think that Boniface the Third is meant, who, in the year 606, obtained the privilege of the pope’s supremacy, than those who understand it of Arius or Pelagius, who both of them fell two hundred years before this. It seems very harsh to interpret it of Christ, or any good angel’s descending from heaven, because the word peptwkota is rightly by us translated falling, and not to be interpreted so softly as descending. In all probability, therefore, the first apostacy of the bishop of Rome was here prophesied. But how
to him was given the key of the bottomless pit, ( by which hell is meant here, as often in Scripture), is hard to say; unless we understand it of his instrumentality, to send many thousands to hell by that corrupt doctrine and worship, which by him then began to obtain. But his key was borrowed, (if God had not permitted him he could not have done it), and it turned but one way; he had only a power to open it, not (as Christ) both to open and shut it.