And upon her forehead was a name written
As the high priest had on his mitre upon his forehead written,
holiness to the Lord, ( Exodus 28:36
) only a different inscription from that; the allusion is thought
to be to harlots, who not only used to put their names over their
doors, but some of them upon their foreheads, that all might know
who they were; of which Mr. Daubuz has given proofs out of
Seneca, Martial, Juvenal, and Petronius; and such might be said
to have an whore's forehead indeed: and this is expressive of the
openness and impudence of the church of Rome, in her idolatrous
worship; she openly declares it, and pleads for it, and invites
and ensnares persons to join with her in it: the name follows,
mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and
abominations
of the earth;
her name is "mystery"; not the mystery of godliness, that she
dislikes and opposes, but the mystery of iniquity; which is the
name antichrist went by in the Apostle Paul's time, when he was
but in embryo, ( 2
Thessalonians 2:7 ) . Some reference may be had to the
mystery of the Mass, in which the Papists pretend are the very
body and blood of Christ; to their seven sacraments, for wherever
almost they find the word mystery, they make a sacrament of that
to which it is applied; and to their unwritten traditions, and
the sense of the Scriptures, which are locked up in the pope's
breast: and it is very remarkable what has been observed by some,
that the word "mystery" was formerly upon the frontlet of the
pope's mitre, and was removed by Pope Julius the Third, when it
was observed that the Protestants made use of this passage of
Scripture, and applied it to the Romish antichrist. Joseph
Scaliger F12 affirms, that he saw mitres at Rome
with this inscription on them. Though others think that this is
not any part of the name, but only signifies that this woman was,
in a mysterious or mystical sense, called Babylon just as the
great city is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, ( Revelation
11:8 ) but to me it seems to be a part of the name, as well
as what follows, "Babylon the great"; that is, the great city, (
Revelation 14:8 ) by
which name the church of Rome may well be called, because of the
signification of it, confusion, ( Genesis 11:9
) its doctrine and worship being a confused mixture of Paganism,
Judaism, and Christianity; and because of the pride and
haughtiness of it, its tyranny and cruelty, and its sorceries and
idolatry; see ( Isaiah
14:12-14 ) ( Isaiah 47:6 Isaiah 47:7 Isaiah 47:12
Isaiah
47:13 ) ( Jeremiah
50:38 ) .
And the mother of harlots,
of all antichristian states and kingdoms; and is different from
the heavenly Jerusalem, the Gospel church, which is the mother of
true believers, ( Galatians
4:26 ) or the "mother of fornications": as some copies read,
and the Vulgate Latin and eastern versions render it; that is,
the author and encourager of them, as the church of Rome has
been; of corporeal fornication, by commanding celibacy, and
forbidding marriage to priests, and setting up of brothel houses;
and of spiritual fornication or idolatry, everywhere required and
encouraged by it: and of "the abominations of the earth"; of
abominable doctrines and practices; all manner of wickedness that
is to be found in the earth, as murder, adultery, sodomy, perjury
these, with everything that is vile and wicked, are practised and
connived at by her.