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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Revelation 17:6 - 17:6
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St. John porceeds in the description of this woman; he declared her to be a filthy and common whore in the foregoing verse; in this he represents her as a cruel and bloody whore; she is said to be drunk, drunk with blood, drunk with holy blood, drunk with the blood of saints and marytrs. Behold the blood-thirstiness of the Roman church, and her insatiableness therein, even unto drunkenness.
Observe, 2. With what wonder and admiration St. John was filled, when he saw this woman drunk with blood, I wondered with great admiration; intimating, that so astonishing is the cruelty of that church, that it justly causes wonder and admiration to all that are not of her cruel and bloody disposition. I wonder that God should suffer so much of his dear servants' blood to be shed by her, and at her insatiable cruelty in shedding it.
Observe, 3. How the Spirit of God was pleased to open this mystery, which indeed is the only vision of this nature expounded throughout the whole book. He begins first with a description of the beast, affirming that he was, and yet is; as if he had said, "The Roman empire was once Pagan, now is not Pagan, but Christian, and yet is as idolatrous now as it was of old; the same it was, only in another form." Rome Papal is certainly as idolatrous, as cruel and bloody, as ever Rome Pagan was of old; yea, perhaps much more so beyond compare.
Observe next, the rise and original is declared from whence this idolatrous church should spring, namely out of the bottomless pit, because her working is after the working of Satan, with all deceivableness, with signs and lying wonders. And as its rise is declared, so is its ruin foretold; it shall go into perdition, that is, shall be finally destroyed, never to revive again: but before this destruction the world shall be under such an infatuation, that the generality of the inhabitants of the earth, some few excepted, shall wonder after the beast; that is, be wonderfully taken with him, and shall follow him with an implicit faith, paying homage and subjection to him. But these admirers and adorers of the beast are only such whose names were not written in the book of life; intimating to us, that in the times of greatest apostasy, and most universal defection from the truth, the Lord wants not his own true church: he ever had, and has, yea, ever will have, a number to stand up for his name, and bear witness to his truth.