And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
Ver. 1. A star fall from heaven] Gr. πεπτωκοτα, that had fallen from heaven, viz. when the third angel sounded,Revelation 8:10, then the bishop of Rome began to fall; but here, in Boniface III and his successors, "He is fallen, he is fallen" from his primitive integrity into the deepest gulf of impiety, The Jesuits (to blind the matter) tell us that by this star is meant Luther, whom Satan sent out to disturb the Church, and God sent them to withstand him. (Scultet. Annal.) Bugenbagius also, a Dutch divine, when he first read Luther's book of the Babylonish Captivity, rashly pronounced him the most pestilent heretic that ever the Church was pestered with. But a few days after, having thoroughly read and weighed the contents of that book, he recanted, and affirmed that all the world was deceived, and Luther only was in right; and so not only himself became a Lutheran, but many others also persuaded by him.
The key of the bottomless pit] Whereinto he lets souls innumerable; so that in the days of Hildebrand letters were set forth as sent from hell, wherein the devil and his angels give the Popish clergy many thanks for sending them in so many souls as they never had in any age before. (Mat. Paris, A. D. 1072.) This key of the bottomless pit is (saith Whitaker) facultas expromendi et docendi dlabolicas doctrinae, his faculty of broaching and teaching doctrines of devils.