And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
All Commentaries on Revelation 14:14 Go To Revelation 14
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Like to the Son of man. That is, to our Saviour Christ, sitting on a white cloud, with a crown of gold, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another Angel, desiring of him to do justice, by putting in his sickle, because the harvest of the earth was ripe, dry, and withered; i.e. the wicked, ripe for punishment. The like is again represented by the sickle, which is said to be put to the clusters of the vineyard: and they were cast into the great wine-press, or lake of the wrath of God, into hell, where the blood is said to come out even up to the horses' bridles, for a thousand and six hundred furlongs: a metaphorical way of expressing the exceeding great torments of the wicked in hell. But to pretend form hence to give the just dimensions of hell, is a groundless conjecture; of which see Cornelius a Lap ide. (Witham) _ , next after Leo. IV. there was a right whore elected pope, called John, or if you will, Joan VIII. who fell in labour in the midst of a solemn procession: thus then by evident demonstration it appeareth that the pope is the whore of Babylon, and consequently antichrist. "Is not this witty? No matter if by the same logic every whore that ever lived in Rome may be proved antichrist. But as for the story of pope Joan, David Blondel, a French hugonot, has shown it to be a fable; for it neither was pope John, nor Joan, that succeeded Leo IV. in the year 853. Leo IV. died in July 853, to whom succeeded, in August or September of the same year, Benedict III. so that no place is found for pope John or Joan, to reign after Leo two years and five months, as the authors of that story pretend. The parson, if need be, may add the expositions on the seven vials of the learned and pious divine, Mr. Mede, as Dr. W. calls him: (though the bishop of Meaux looks upon him as a mere enthusiast) the effusion of the first vial, says Mede, was when the Waldenses and Albigenses, and the followers of Wycliffe, and Hus began to renounce popery. The second vial was completed by what is more eminently styled the reformation, begun by Luther, and carried on afterwards by many others. The third vial was completed partly by the laws made here in England in the reign of queen Elizabeth against popish priests, partly by the great overthrow given to the Spanish armada, in the year 1588, and also to the Spanish forces in the Netherlands. See the rest in Dr. W. p. 127. But Dr. W. with Mr. Whist on, looks upon the vials to be all still future. I cannot think that the learned men among the Protestants believe the popes to be antichrist, especially since time, that discovers what is true as to matters of fact, that are pretended to be foretold, has confuted the conjectures of de Moulin, Jurieu, Mede, Whist on I must here do justice to divers learned men of the Protestant communion. Grotius, in a letter (epist. 557.) to the Protestant John Gerard Vossius, tells him, "that they who did not believe the popes to be antichrist, nevertheless judged it necessary to give such interpretations, for the public good of the Protestant religion. "See Mons. de Meaux in his advertisement, num. 1. The same Vossius answers, (ep. 571.) "that he himself having told a certain minister of Dort, whom he calls thick scull, (lourde tete) that he should not impose on the people, even against popery, that minister presently asked him if he was for taking the papists' part, whom, said he, we cannot run down too much, that the people may the more detest their Church. This, adds Vossius, is much the same as some others said to me at Amsterdam: why should not we say the pope is antichrist? must we leave off saying so? and make the people leave our communion more and more, as if too many did not leave it already? "This was a secret that was not to be divulged. Of our English Protestants, I have read Dr. Hammond's paraphrase and notes, on the second chapter of Thessalonians; and on the Revelation or Apocalypse, he never pretends that the popes are antichrist. The predictions in St. John, of the beasts, of the fall of Babylon, of the great harlot, he expounds, as fulfilled already, by the destruction of pagan Rome, and of its idolatry, superstitions, auguries, under the heathen emperors, much after the same manner as Alcazar, and as the bishop of Meaux and other Catholic writers. Mr. Richard Montague, in his Gag. p. 74, writes thus: "Whether the pope be that antichrist, or not, the Church (of England) resolveth not, tendereth it not to be believed any way. Some, I grant, are very peremptory indeed that he is. He, for instance, who wrote and printed it, I am as sure the pope is antichrist, that antichrist spoken of in the Scripture, as that Jesus Christ is God: but they that are so resolute, peremptory, and certain, let them answer for themselves. The Church is not tied, nor any one that I know of, to make good their private imaginations. For myself, I profess ingenuously I am not of opinion that the bishops of Rome personally are that antichrist. Nor yet that the bishops of Rome successively are that antichrist "He only holds the pope and papists to be antichrists improperly in the sense that St. John says, there are many antichrists. He cites for the same opinion Melancthon and others. Mr. Thorndike, in his just weights and measures, (chap. ii.) speaking to these two points, that the pope is antichrist, and papists idolaters. "The truth, says he, is they of the Church of Rome have overcharged us, in calling us heretics. But they that would have the pope antichrist, and the papists idolaters, have revived it upon them, and taken their revenge beyond the bounds of blameless defence. Let them not lead the people by the nose, to believe that they can prove the supposition, which they cannot "The same Mr. Thorndike, in chap. 19, p. 125 shows more at large that their reverencing images in churches is no idolatry. And again, (p. 149) "having shewed, says he, why the Church of Rome cannot be charged with idolatry, I may from hence infer that the pope cannot be antichrist. "Yet Dr. W. on the Apocalypse, has another argument to prove that the pope is antichrist, that is, by a new invention, the mystical antichrist, foretold by St. John, and his reign to be twelve hundred and sixty years, only because he supposeth that the pope and papists give divine honour, the honour that is due to God alone, to images, saints, and Angels. This he continually repeats, and takes it for a thing granted. It seems very strange, that so learned a doctor, after such mistakes have been canvassed and cleared, as appears by what hath been written by Mr. Thorndike on this subject, should still run on in this groundless supposition, contrary to all the protestations which the Catholics have constantly made. Every little papist boy or girl can assure the doctor, that they have been always taught to give divine honour and worship to God alone: they will recite to him the words of their catechism, that they pray indeed before images, to put them in mind of things thereby represented, but they do not pray to them, because they know they can neither see, nor hear, nor help them: they will tell him that the Angels and saints, even the blessed Virgin Mother of Christ, and the true mother of God made man, is no more than a creature below God, at an infinite distance; and so that the inferior honour that we pay to them, is nothing like to that supreme and divine honour, which we pay to God alone. In a word we know, and have always professed that images, Angels, and saints are but creatures; and as we are not such fools as to think them Gods, so neither are we so senseless as to pay them divine honour.
