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hieroglyphic, by which the Church is represented in a double point of view: in her civil, capacity, as a great and powerful people among the nations of the world; and in her religious capacity and pre-eminence, as the Church of Christ. When only a family is intended by such figures, then the sun signifies the father, the moon the mother, and stars the children, Gen. XXXVII, 9. 10; but the objects of these symbols are all of the first magnitude. Heaven,in which this woman here appears upon a new station, is all Christendom, in contradistinction to those parts of the earth inhabited by Pagans. And this trope belongs to the customary figures of this prophecy; but what now follows is an extraordinary composition of emblems intentionally selected from different systems of symbols, to express the mysteries of the kingdom of God in a sealed language. Thus the sun here signifies the German empire as established by Charlemagne; the moon, the Mahommedan power; and the crown of twelve stars, the spiritual Israel, or the lineage of the true Church which has received all the promises of the Lord in time and eter-. nity, and the twelve apostles, upon whose doctrine the Church is founded. Let us now see how this interpretation will apply.

During the period to which this prophecy refers, Charlemagne founded the German empire, and was crowned emperor at Rome, A. D. 800, which has endured in different dynasties to the present day. He took the Church into his protection, encompassed her by his power, reputation and fame, and accelerated the propagation of the Gospel, more than any prince in Christendom has done since his time. He subdued the Saxons and introduced Christianity among them; he humbled the Saracens, and furnished the Church with an enlarged field to unfurl her banners on every side, by his great victories. We are yet delighted with his incitements to the clergy, to study the Holy Scriptures and the sciences, to abolish image

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worship, and to re-establish the primative Church-discipline among the clerical orders and the people. He founded many seminaries of learning, and bishopricks, in order to extend the Church of Christ among the Heathen, and considered it an honour to be the guardian of every establishment for gospel purposes. His name rose to universal fame, by his piety and love of justice. Thus he gave a glorious example to the rulers of this world, which was in some measure imitated by his son Lewis the meek, and by all the succeeding dynasties on his throne; many of whom have endeavoured to advance the progress of Christianity, though often bigots, and over-zealous partizans of the Roman Pontiff. This empire is the sun, under whose beneign influence the Church sprung up to a flourishing state, and in which she gloried among the nations of the earth.

The sun is a great light, and the moon a lesser light, Gen. 1, 16. which here signifies the Mahommedan power, where the excellence of nations and their temporal polity, are considered in a comparative view to the Church and kingdom of Christ on earth. Bengelius remarks, that all the Mahommedan nations, the Saracens, the Turks and the Persians carry the moon in their coat of arms, which is at least worthy of notice in this place. The true reason however of representing the Mahommedan power by the moon in this hieroglyphic seems to be, because it derived all its distinguishing power and excellence both in territory and religion, from its possession of Christian countries, to which, by right of Heaven, Charlemagne possessed the legitimate claim, & the Mahommedans simply the right of conquest. This moon the woman now had under her feet, because the Mahommedan power was now broken in Christendom, and no longer dangerous to her existence. So great was the reputation of Charlemagne that historians affirm, the Christians in the dominions of Aaron Al Rasjid, enjoyed perfect tranquility,

as if they had lived under the power of a Christian prince. It is nevertheless necessary to remark, that this emblem only represents the Mahommedan power in as far, as it stood connected with Christendom.

In this majestic attire, the Church now appeared in heaven on a new station, by the acquisition of a Christian empire, which she had lately founded, adorned with a crown of twelve stars. These stars are not termed stars of heaven, and probably have a double signification in this place. They first shew her to be the true Israel, consisting of twelve tribes, and the lawful heir of all the promises of God to his people; by which lineage she is authorized to propagate the Gospel, and gather all the nations of the earth into the sheep-fold of Christ. But she is also thus represented, secondly, on account of her internal worth and excellence, in reference to the twelve apostles, as the true Church of Christ, founded on, and yet retaining the doctrine of those extraordinary messengers of the Lord to all mankind. That the Church should arrive to such a state of power and splendour in the world, was considered a great wander, or sign in heaven, indicative of her future destiny to supreme excellence and glory. See for this signification of the word snov, Rom. IV, 11. I Cor. XIV, 22. The Church of Christ rejoiced at the conversion of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, but many offices of government, in the army and in the provinces, remained in the the hands of Pagans; and the Christians were well convinced, and soon had additional proof during the reign of Julian the apostate, that the Church was not out of danger. But now, at the commencement of this period, Paganism was fully conquered, and utterly vanquished in the Roman empire, and by the conquests of Charlemagne, the Church had acquired such a degree of physical power, firmness and ascendency in the world, as secured her continuance, notwithstanding all opposition, and prognosticated her future greatness

in the Millennium. For this reason her temporal power, as concentrated in the newly established Western empire, is here represented by the emblem of the sun.

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However, this chapter is truly the crux criticorum, and many pious, learned and eminent expositors have digressed widely from each other, in their opinions on its contents. But it would appear; the time was not yet arrived, when that degree of comfort and assurance of God's truth and faithfulness contained in this mysterious vo- . lume, was so necessary to the Church, as it has become in our days of infidelity. My explanations on those difficult points, will indeed be new, but I have no less con⚫fident hopes on that account, to shew judicious readers that they are also correct. However, to combat these contravening opinions, is not my object; the learned will read and judge for themselves. My exposition will be found to follow the heart and centre of the church, wherever the Lord has been pleased to place it in several periods; without violating the intrinsic prophetic chronology and methodical order of this prophecy, by following which, alone, an expositor can hope to succeed.

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Verse 2. And she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. The Church is here represented as a woman of full age and maturity, and not as a virgin. She had brought forth many spiritual children, since the time she was espoused to Christ her husband; but she was now pregnant with a child of great hopes, destined to be the instrument for peculiar purposes in Zion, which is therefore termed with emphasis v¡ov aggeva, a manly Son,* a brave, bold and generous birth ; and deɛcribed in regard to his future destiny, as Christ mystically in his people. However, the nature of her pregnancy, her cries and pains previous to, and in parturition, can only be ascertained from the nature of her birth; and the

o aggny masculus, mas, non est diminutivum græcum.

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nature of this manly son must be recognized in his pastoral power, which he shall one day exercise with a shepherd's red. Bengelius places the birth of the man-child into the invisible world; and Young understood the commencement of the Bohemian and Moravian Churches, by which he violates the chronology of this prophecy, as their conversion only began A. D. 894, and 940. Mr. Mede and Gill, refer us to the time of Constantine the great; and Lowman and Faber, considered the man-child, ⚫ to denote a constant succession of converts in the Church, and a continuation of Christ's kingdom against all opposition. But certainly, this prophecy refers to a new and singular event, of great notoriety in the Church, which at this time, must be capable of being brought to a considerable degree of evidence by past occurrences; and this I will now presume to undertake. It is a customary figure among the Asiatics to this day, and used in the most ancient books of the Holy Scriptures, to term a nation a son, and a valiant, generous and heroic people a man-child. Thus the Lord calls the whole nation of Isralites his son, his first-born, Exod. iv, 22. Deut. 1, 13. VIII, 5. Eccles.. XXXVI, 12. and the tribe of Ephraim his dear son, his pleasant child, Jer. xxx1, 20. 9. I Kings 11, 2. Job XXXVIII, 3. Ephes. IV, 13. I Cor. xvi, 13, and the different tribes his children, Deut. xiv, 1. Isa. 1, 2. 4. Thus the circumstances of a woman in travail, and her pains and anxiety previous to parturition, are often used as metaphors by the holy prophets, to denote the strong desire, earnest cries and fervent prayers of the church, and the laborious and often painful and dangerous exertions of the ministers of the Gospel, for the propagation of the church and the conversion of a people Isa. LIV, 1. Gal. iv, 27. This emblem more particularly signifies the spiritual birth, or conversion of a whole nation, Isa. LVI, 7. 8. According to this illustration then, the meaning of this symbolical representation seems to be, that during this

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