Revelation 9:14-16

1599 Geneva Bible

Footnotes

1. Revelation 9:14 As if he should have said, These hitherto have been so bound by the power of God, that they could not freely run upon all men as themselves lusted, but were stayed and restrained at that great flood of Euphrates, that is, in their spiritual Babylon (for this is a Paraphrase of the spiritual Babylon by the limits of the spiritual Babylon long since overthrown) that they might not commit those horrible slaughters which they long breathed after. Now go to: let loose those four Angels, that is, administers of the wrath of God, in that number that is convenient to the slaughtering of the four quarters of the world: stir them up and give them the bridle, that rushing of that Babylon of theirs, which is the seat of the wicked ones, they may fly upon all the world, therein to rage, and most licentiously to exercise their tyranny, as God hath ordained. This was done when Gregory the ninth by public authority established for law his own Decretals, by which he might freely lay trains for the life of simple men. For who is it that seeth not that the laws Decretal most of them are as snares to catch souls withal? Since that time (O good God!) how great slaughters have there been? how great massacres? All histories are full of them: and this our age aboundeth with most horrible and monstrous examples of the same.
2. Revelation 9:15 The execution of the commandment is in two points: one, that those butchers are let loose, that out of their tower of the spiritual Babylon they might with fury run abroad through all the world, as well the thief of that crew which are most prompt unto all assays, in this verse: as their multitudes, both most copious, of which a number certain is named for a number infinite, Verse 16, and in themselves by all means fully furnished to hide and to hurt, Verse 17, as being armed with fire, smoke and brimstone, as appeareth in the color of their armor, which dazzleth the eyes of all men: and have the strength of Lions to hurt withal, from which (as out of their mouth) the fiery, smoky, and stinking darts of the Pope are shot out, Verse 18. The other point is, that these butchers have effected the commandment of God by fraud and violence, in the two verses following.