Manner of Antichrist’s Destruction
Antichrist shall be brought to ruin gradually; a part after a part: here a fenced city and there a high tower, even until she is made to lie even with the ground.
As for the order of the angels that pour forth this wrath, they plainly show that this enemy must come down by degrees; for these vials are by them poured out one after another. Now, since by these vials antichrist must fall, it is evident that this man of sin, this son of perdition, is to fall and die by degrees. He would not die at all, as is manifest by his wrestling with it; but it is an almighty God that judges, and therefore he must come down. His friends also, with what cordials they can, will labor to lengthen out his tranquillity; but God hath set his bounds, and he cannot go beyond the time appointed.
We must also put a difference betwixt his being fought with and wounded, and that of his dying the death. Michael and his angels have been holding him in play a long season, but yet he is not dead; but, as I said, he shall descend into battle and perish, and shall be found no more for ever.
“And the cities of the nations fell,” Rev. 16:19; the cities of the nations, the antichristian churches, otherwise called the daughters of the mother of harlots. This is a second stroke that God will give this man of sin, and a third cometh quickly.
Wherefore it follows, upon the downfall of those cities of the nations, that great Babylon came into remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. Now then, strike at great Babylon. Great Babylon! What is that? Why, I take it to be the mother, the metropolitan, the great harlot herself. For though sometimes by great Babylon we may understand the church of antichrist in general, yet by it is meant more properly the mother of the daughters, of whose overthrow we have spoken before.
We are now, then, come to the threshold of the door of the house of the old one—to the door of the mother of harlots and abomination of the earth. This then that but now is said to come into remembrance with God, is that which gave being to the cities destroyed before, to wit, the ministers, the queen, the mother-church as she calls herself.
And this is the wisdom of God concerning her, that she should not be the first that should die, but that she should live to see the destruction of her daughters, and pine away under the fright and sense of that, even until judgment also shall overtake herself.
Thus Pharaoh and his chief ones did live to see the greatest part of Egypt destroyed, before judgment overtook them; but at last it came to their doors also. Zedekiah lived to see his children slain before his face, before judgment overtook him to his own personal destruction.
Babylon also, when God sent the cup of his fury unto her, yet was to live to see the nations drink before her.
From all which I conclude that the mother, the metropolitan, the lady of kingdoms, shall live to see her daughters executed before her face; after which, she shall come into consideration herself, for she must assuredly drink of the cup.
This destruction must be last for this reason also, because she most deserves the bottom of the cup. The bottom is the dregs, the most bitter part, and that where the most heat and fiercest wrath of God do lie. And great Babylon came into remembrance before God: “To give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.”
Now then is the time of iniquity, when it will be come to the full; and now also is the time of God’s anger, when it will be come to the full. Now therefore must the murders and thefts and blasphemies and fornications belonging to this mother of harlots, be recompensed to the full, to wit, with the dregs of this cup. Yet since the hailstones come by weight and the wrath comes by measure—for so a talent and a cup imports, Rev. 16:17-21—it follows that the almighty God, even in the midst of the heat of all this anger, will keep to the rules of justice and judgment while he is dealing with this enemy: he has not passions to carry him beyond rules of judgment, nor weakness to cause him to fall short of doing justice; therefore he has his judgments for her by weight, and his indignation by measure. But yet this weight and measure are not suited to her constitution, not with an intent to purge or refine her; but it is disposed according to the measure and nature of her iniquity, and comes to sweep her as with the besom of destruction, until she is swept off from the face of all the earth.
Now since she is dying, let us ring her passing-bell; for when she is dead, we that live to see it intend to ring out.