Whoever are worthy the name, "My people," will hear and obey the Lord's voice and come out of Babylon and "receive not of her plagues"; because their obedience in fleeing out as soon as they see Babylon's real condition will prove that they were never in real accord with her sins. Those who remain after seeing Babylon and her blasphemous doctrines in the light now shining are reckoned as endorsing the blasphemies and deserving the "plagues" most thoroughly—as much as or more than the "tare" class of Babylonians, because they have greater light.
Where have God's people been but in the various sects of Christendom, and where has more light been sinned against than in these sects, and upon what will God's plagues come with more severity than upon these sects? Therefore, how reasonable that God should save His people from being contaminated with their sins and make them immune from their plagues by inviting them to leave Babylon? In a secondary sense this passage well applies to the Lord's people coming out of the sects of Little Babylon.
Isa. 47:10; 48:20; 52:11; Jer. 50:8; 51:6, 9; 2 Cor. 6:17; 7:1; Zech. 2:7; Gen. 19:16, 17, 29; Luke 17:32; Matt. 24:15-20; Jude 1:23; Num. 16:21; Rev. 16:19; 18:1-24.
