And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.
Ver. 11. And blasphemed the God of heaven] As they did in 1588, when the Spaniards gave out that Christ was turned Lutheran; and as Faux the gunpowder traitor did, when he told those that took him, that not God, but the devil, had brought to light and to nought that desperate design. (Lonicer. Theatr. Histor.) Thus they set their mouths against heaven, and their tongue walketh through the earth; as if Augustus Caesar were dealing with some god Neptune; or the three sons, trying their archery at their father's heart, to see who can shoot nearest. What an execrable blasphemy is that of John Hunt, a Roman Catholic, in his humble appeal to King James in the 6th chapter of that Pamphlet: "The God of the Protestants is the most uncivil and evil mannered God of all those who have borne the names of gods upon the earth, yea, worse than Pan, god of the clowns, which can endure no ceremonies nor good manners at all." See Dr Sheldon's Mark of the Beast.
And rspented not] This leopard Rev 13:2 can never change his spots, because they are not in the skin, but in the flesh and bones, in the sinews and most inward parts. Tigers rage and tear themselves at the sound of a drum, and at the smell of sweet spices; so do these savage Papists, when called to repent.