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Revelation 9:21

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

Neither repented they of their murders - Their cruelties towards the genuine followers of God, the Albigenses, and Waldenses, and others, against whom they published crusades, and hunted them down, and butchered them in the most shocking manner. The innumerable murders by the horrible inquisition need not be mentioned.

Their sorceries - Those who apply this also to the Romish Church understand by it the various tricks, sleights of hand, or legerdemain, by which they impose on the common people in causing images of Christ to bleed, and the various pretended miracles wrought at the tombs, etc., of pretended saints, holy wells, and such like.

Fornication - Giving that honor to various creatures which is due only to the Creator.

Their thefts - Their exactions and impositions on men for indulgences, pardons, etc. These things may be intended, but it is going too far to say that this is the true interpretation. And yet to express any doubt on this subject is with some little else than heresy. If such men can see these things so clearly in such obscure prophecies, let them be thankful for their sight, and indulgent to those who still sit in darkness.

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary
The sixth angel sounded, and here the power of the Turks seems the subject. Their time is limited. They not only slew in war, but brought a poisonous and ruinous religion. The antichristian generation repented not under these dreadful judgments. From this sixth trumpet learn that God can make one enemy of the church a scourge and a plague to another. The idolatry in the remains of the eastern church and elsewhere, and the sins of professed Christians, render this prophecy and its fulfilment more wonderful. And the attentive reader of Scripture and history, may find his faith and hope strengthened by events, which in other respects fill his heart with anguish and his eyes with tears, while he sees that men who escape these plagues, repent not of their evil works, but go on with idolatries, wickedness, and cruelty, till wrath comes upon them to the utmost.