And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Ver. 4. Another voice] This was Christ's voice, whether mediate or immediate it appears not. SeeJeremiah 51:45 .
My people] A people Christ had, and still hath, where Antichrist most prevaileth. There are thought to be no less than 20,000 Protestants in Seville itself, a chief city of Spain. Even in Italy there are full 4000 professed Protestants; but their paucity and obscurity (saith Sir Edw. Sands) shall enclose them in a cipher.
Partakers of her sins] Esto procul Roma qui cupis esse pius. Roma, vale, vidi, satis est vidisse, &c. John Knox refused the bishopric offered him by King Edward VI, as having aliquid commune cum Antichristo, something in common with the Antichrist. Adam Damlip, martyr, had been a great Papist, and chaplain to Fisher, bishop of Rochester; after whose death he travelled to Rome, where he thought to have found all godliness and sincere religion. In the end he found there, as he said, such blaspheming of God, contempt of true religion, looseness of life, and abundance of all abominations, that he abhorred any longer there to abide; although he was greatly requested by Cardinal Pole there to continue, and to read three lectures a week in his house; for the which he offered him great entertainment. (Acts and Mon.) The like is recorded of Mr Rough, martyr, that being before Bonner, he affirmed that he had been twice at Rome, and there had seen plainly with his eyes that the pope was the very Antichrist; for there he saw him carried on men's shoulders, and the falsely named sacrament borne before him; yet was there more reverence given to him than to that which they counted their God. Mr Ascham (schoolmaster to Queen Elizabeth) was wont to thank God that he was but nine days in Italy, wherein he saw in that one city of Venice more liberty to sin, than in London he ever heard of in nine years. (Mr Fuller's Holy State, f. 159.)
And that ye receive not of her plagues] Muscult ruinis imminentibus proemigrant, et aranei cum telis primi cadunt, saith Pliny: Mice will haste out of a house that is ready to drop on their heads, and spiders with their webs will fall before the house falleth. Cerinthus the heretic coming into the bath where St John was washing, the apostle εξηλατο του βαλανειου, sprang or leapt out of the bath, saith Eusebius (lib. iv. 14); as fearing, lest being found in his company he should partake of his plagues. It is dangerous conversing with wicked men, 1. For infection of sin; 2. For infliction of punishment. Ambrose, closing up the story of Ahab and Jezebel's fearful end, fitly saith thus: Fuge ergo, dives, huiusmodi exitum, sed fugies huiusmodi exitum, si fugeris huiusmodi flagitium: Flee therefore, O rich man, such an end as Ahab had, by shunning such evils as Ahab did. (Amb. de Nab. Jezreel, c. xi.)