Revelation 17:1-2

Revelation 17:1-2. And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials Most probably this was the seventh angel; for, under the seventh vial, great Babylon came in remembrance before God, and now St. John is called upon to see her condemnation and execution; saying, Come hither, I will show thee the judgment of the great whore Which is now circumstantially described. This relation concerning the great whore, and that concerning the wife of the Lamb, (Revelation 21:9-10,) have the same introduction, in token of the exact opposition between them; that sitteth as a queen, in pomp, power, ease, and luxury, upon many waters So ancient Babylon, which was seated upon the great river Euphrates, is described by Jeremiah, (Jeremiah 51:13,) as dwelling upon many waters; and from thence the phrase is borrowed, and signifies, according to the angel’s own explanation, (Revelation 17:15,) ruling over many peoples and nations. Neither was this an ordinary prostitute; she was the great whore, with whom the kings of the earth, both ancient and modern, have committed fornication By partaking of her idolatry, and various kinds of wickedness. So Tyre is described, Isaiah 23:17, as having committed fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. Nay, not only the kings, but inferior persons, the inhabiters of the earth, the common people, have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication No wine can more thoroughly intoxicate those who drink it, than false zeal does the followers of the great whore. Thus it was said of ancient Babylon, The nations have drunk of her wine, therefore the nations are mad. Fornication, in the usual style of Scripture, is idolatry; but if it be taken even literally, it is true that modern Rome openly allows the one as well as practises the other. Ancient Rome doth, in no respect, so well answer the character; for she ruled more with a rod of iron than with the wine of her fornication. Her ambition was for extending her empire, and not her religion. She permitted even the conquered nations to continue in the religion of their ancestors, and to worship their own gods after their own rituals. She may be said rather to have been corrupted by the importation of foreign vices and superstitions than to have established her own in other countries.