ludes to the practice of harlots giving
love-potions to their paramours, very expressive of the indulgences,
absolutions, preferments, etc., by which the church of Rome attracts
disciples to her idolatry. "The nations have drunken of her wine;
therefore the nations are mad." (Jer. li. 7.)--The inscription "upon her
forehead" is after the manner of shameless prostitutes, avowing Rome's
whoredoms of idolatry, monasticism, indulgences to sin, as essential to
religion, a "mystery of iniquity," by which the "man of sin thinks to
change times and laws." (Dan. vii. 24, 25; xi. 36, 37.)

6. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with
the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with
great admiration.

V. 6.--This "woman,"--_Christian church_,--was "drunken with the blood
of saints and martyrs." Of course, such a sight would give rise to the
apostle's astonishment. The attempt of popish writers to apply this to
_pagan_ Rome's persecutions is demonstrably false; for John could not
"wonder" at the persecution of the church when he was himself an actual
victim in Patmos, (ch. i. 9.)

7. And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell
thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which
hath the seven heads and ten horns.

8. The beast that thou sawest, was, and is not; and shall ascend out of
the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the
earth shall wonder (whose names were not written in the book of life
from the foundation of the world,) when they behold the beast that was,
and is not, and yet is.

9. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven
mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

10. And there are seven kings: five have fallen, and one is, and the
other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short
space.

11. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of
the seven, and goeth into perdition.

Vs. 7-11.--The angel explains the "mystery of the woman and of the beast
that carrieth her." The beast, the civil power, carrieth, sustains the
woman, the church; as the church controls the state, (v. 3; ch. xiii. 1,
11, 16.) The "beast that was, and is not, and yet is," is a mysterious
personage as well as the woman; therefore all who "dwell upon the
earth,"--not in "heaven, wonder," (ch. xiii. 3-6;)--that is, all the
vassals of Antichrist, distinguished f