Revelation 16:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

I heard a great voice, &c.— In obedience to the divine command, the seven angels pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth: and as the trumpets were so many steps and degrees of the ruin of the Roman empire, so the vials are of the Roman church. The one, in polity and government, is the image of the other: the one is compared to the system of the world, and has her earth, and sea, and rivers, and sun, as well as the other; and this is the reason of the similitude and resemblance of the judgments in both cases. Rome Papal has [chap. Revelation 11:8.] been distinguished by the title of spiritual Egypt, and resembles Egypt, in her punishments as well as in her crimes, tyranny, idolatry, and wickedness.