And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
Ver. 30. And I will show wonders in the heavens] Prodigia beneficia credentibus, malefica et horrifica incredulis, saith Cornelius a Lapide, who interpreteth the text of those signs and wonders that shall precede the day of judgment: and for confirmation hereof allegeth Joel 3:2, together with Matthew 24:29 Luke 21:25. And had he looked a little higher into those Chapter s, and taken in all the troubles that befell the Church from our Saviour's ascension to his second coming, together with those horrible calamities and confusions that shall befall the wicked, for contempt of the gospel, and persecution of the professors thereof, he had done right, in mine opinion. It is ordinary with the prophets to set forth horrible commotions by such figurative expressions: see Jeremiah 4:23, &c.; Isa 13:10 Revelation 6:12. Those that have received the spirit of adoption, must not dream of a delicacy, but expect persecution. Christ came to send fire on the earth, Luke 12:49. Neither may persecutors hope to escape unpunished, but look to be pursued by Divine justice. See Trapp on " Rev 6:15 " How heavy was the hand of God upon Jerusalem, that slaughter house of the saints; and afterwards upon the ten persecutors of Rome! 1. Nero (whom Tertullian rightly calleth Dedicatorero damnationis Christianorum, quippe qui orientem fidem primus Romae cruentavit, the first bloody persecutor of the Christian religion) lost 80,000 of his subjects by the pestilence, had his army utterly routed and cut off in Brittany, both the Armenias revolted from him, the senators rose up against him, and compelled him to be his own executioner; 2. Domitian was butchered by his soldiers; 3. Trajan died of a dropsy; 4. Severus died miserably here at York; 5. Maximinus, with his son, was cut in pieces; 6. Decius died in a far country; 7. Valerian was flayed by Sapores, King of Persia, who took him prisoner. 8. Aurelian was slain by his own men; 9. Dioclesian poisoned himself; 10. Maximian hanged himself. What should I speak of Julian, Anastasius, Heraclius, &c.; the French persecutors, Francis II, Charles IX, Henry III, the Guises, &c.; Philip II of Spain, who returning out of the Low Countries, met a storm, and suffered shipwreck, to the great danger of his life? He said he was delivered by the singular providence of God to root out Lutheranism, which he presently began to do with all his might. He afterwards died miserably of the lousy disease. Queen Mary died of a tumour, or else of grief of heart for King Philip's unkind departure, severe losses, Calais surrendered, harm done by thunders from heaven and by fire in the royal navy, extreme dearths raging, her conceptions failing. What heavy judgments befell various particular persecutors of those times, Poole, Gardiner, Bonner, Morgan, Story, Burton, see Acts and Mon. 1902, 1904, &c., 1915. George Eagles (alias Trudge-over-the-world) having hid himself in a grain field, was for money descried by one Ralph Lurdain, and burnt at Chelmsford: where afterwards the same Lurdain was hanged for stealing a horse (Mr Leigh's Saints' Encouragement, Epistle to Reader.)
Blood and fire] Signs terrifying, and testifying the wrath and displeasure of God for the sins of men, and such a face of the whole fabric of the universe; as that all the parts thereof may seem to have conspired for the destruction of mankind. Before the war between Pompey and Caesar the sea seemed to be bloody (Lucan. lib. 1, monstra enumerans quae bellum civilo praecesserunt).
- “ Superique minaces
Prodigiis terras implerant, aethera, pontum
Ignota obscure viderunt sidera noctes,
Ardentemque polum flammis, coeloquevolantes
Obliquas per inane faces -
Fulgura fallaci micuerunt crebra sereno,
Et varias ignis dense dedit aere ferrous. ”
Before Caesar's death not only drops of blood fell from heaven, but also pits and pools flowed with blood. Puteique cruore mutati (Claudian. lib. 1 in Eutropius). In the year of grace 874, at Brixia, in the entrance of Italy, it rained blood for three days and three nights together. In the year 1505 there appeared in Germany upon people's garments and women's rocks as they were spinning, diverse prints and token of the nails, of the spunge, of the spear, of the Lord's coat, and of bloody crosses, &c. Maximilian the emperor had and showed the same to Francis Mirandula; who wrote thereupon his book called Staurostichon, wherein are these verses,
“ Non ignota cano, Caesar monstravit: et ipsi
Vidimus: innumeros prompsit Germania testes. ”
It is not many years since a shower of blood fell about Gloucester, if our intelligence deceived us not. Such prodigies are usually sad presages, nec inania terriculamenta haec esse, res ipsa testatur, saith Gaulther here: and event proveth that these are no vain spectres. By fire here, understand those terrible flaming apparitions in the air, lightning, comets, &c., portending lamentable calamities. Such there were to be seen (as I have heard from eyewitnesses) on that very night wherein the gunpowder plot was detected and defeated, in a very terrible manner. And such were those meteors in the likeness of fiery serpents that fell here, A.D. 788, before the invasion of the Danes: whereunto we may add the new star that appeared in Cassiopeia in November, 1572, and continued sixteen months: soon after which Charles IX of France (author of the Parisian Massacre) died of exceeding bleeding at several parts of his body, inter horribilium blasphemiarum diras, saith the historian, cursing and swearing. And lastly that prodigious comet, A.D. 1618, forerunner of the German wars and our late troubles; whatever is yet behind to be suffered by us. Certainly if the sorcerers of Egypt were among us, they would wonder at men's stupendous stupidity, and tell them that these extraordinary occurrents in heaven and earth were the very finger of God, for their warning.
And pillars of smoke] Heb. palms of smoke, so Son 3:6 by similitude, because tall and straight as palm trees; which also lift up themselves under their burden, and will not be held down. Smokey vapours mounting upright are fitly compared thereunto, Elationes fumi, so Tremellius.