great whore. The ten kings are never spoken of as committing fornication with the harlot. The kings of the earth and inhabitants of the earth are mentioned as having so conducted themselves. The rising of the ten kings into active power, is a distinctly noticed and subsequent event. Their specific description as active, is from xvii. 12 to ver. 17.
The destruction and judgment of the great city involved the ruin of all mere secular interests—wealth—all that was Tyrian in its character—though souls of men had been added to that renowned city’s traffic; for the great city traded in them also. Any thing to enrich, characterized the conduct of the city, taught by direct and accomplished apostasy. The city was, in a certain sense, distinct from the merchants: she was the whole system—they stood aloof from, the fear of her torment when God was judging her,—and the ship-masters withal. But heaven and the holy apostles and prophets were called to rejoice over her. She had been the enemy of heaven, as the whole lust of the earth, to shut out God, and withal the persecutor and enemy of the revelation and testimony of the heavenly glory, the judgment of the world, and the coming of the Son of man—in a word, of the great power of testimony by which the Church was constituted in the
