(1) And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God: (2) For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. (3) And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up forever and ever.
John's attention seems here to have been called off from the view which he had been so much delighted with, in beholding the total overthrow of mystical Babylon, to hear the congratulations of the multitude in heaven, even the Church, who all took part in the triumph. He hears their hymn of praise, and the words of it. He hath recorded it also for the Church. It begins with the blessed word Alleluia, and it ends with the same. The Old Testament Church was remarkable for the use of this word. They generally began and ended all their hymns of praise with it. And to say the truth, it is very sweet. Praise is comely for the righteous.
But what I would yet more particularly desire the Reader to observe, in this triumphal song, of the Church in heaven, is, that in it they recorded the faithfulness of God, in the destruction of antichrist. There is no perfection of God, which the Lord all along commends to his people's notice and regard, more than his faithfulness. Know now, saith the Lord by Moses, that the Lord thy God, the is God, the faithful God! Deuteronomy 7:9. And as it is to the Lord's glory, when he confirms that faithfulness by his fulfillment of his promises; so is it to the credit of the Lord's people, when they as readily, and as cheerfully acknowledge it.
The Church, in the ruin of the whore, traced her mercies to this one source, God had from the first taught, that no weapon formed against Israel should prosper. Hence, when Rome turned all her weapons upon the Church, to destroy it, and the Lord did as he had said, and threw to the ground the whole power of the Pope; here was a lively proof of God's faithfulness. And the Church sung it. It is blessed to eye God and Christ, in all things!
I desire the Reader to take notice of the strong language made use of by the Church in heaven, in calling this heresy the great whore. And I beg of him no less to regard what is said of the smoke of her furnace, (as if alluding to Sodom and Gomorrah), which rose up forever and ever. These are grand points.
Let me beg the Reader no less to remark also what is said of God's judgments, in his judging the great whore, namely, that they are true and righteous. Her daring opposition to God's truth, her blasphemies and unjust traffic in selling pardons, which belong only to God to bestow, and her arrogating a right of supremacy in divine things, justly call for divine vengeance. Hence, therefore, her everlasting destruction forms a part, in the great system of what is true and righteous, in the Lord to accomplish. And in the same moment, it is a part of God's justice to shelter and protect all his faithful ones; it is a righteous thing with God to punish his and their enemies, and to repay him that hateth him to his face.