Christ can be intended by this symbol; for our Lord is invariably represented as the husband, never as the son, of his Church. Hence Mr. Mede conceives, and perhaps not without reason, that the mystic Christ is here meant, or Christ considered in his members; in other words, that by the man-child we are to understand the whole body of the faithful, or the spiritual children of the Church. The greatest difficulty however yet remains. Supposing this interpretation of the symbol to be the right one, how are we to interweave it with the prediction, so as to make them properly harmonize together? Mr. Mede believes the pains of the woman previous to her parturition to denote the persecutions of the Church during the days of paganism; and the catching up of the child to the throne of God to signify the introduction of the Christians into sovereign power by the conversion of the Roman empire under Constantine. This interpretation however both completely violates (as I have already observed) the chronology of the prophecy, by carrying us back to a period long prior to the commencement of the 1260 years; and, in other respects likewise, is very far from being unexceptionable. If the manchild denote the whole body of Christians, why should they be said to be born more in the age of Constantine than in any other age? And, if numbers of spiritual children still continue to be born to the Church by the laver of regeneration, how can the pangs of the woman signify the pagan persecutions?

Mr. Lowman's scheme appears to me liable to much fewer objections than Mr. Mede's. Like myself he confines the whole war between the woman and the dragon to the period of the 1260 years, instead of going back to the days of primitive Christianity, and the age of Constantine; and most justly observes, that the prediction "plainly describes an afflicted and persecuted state of the Church in general, during this period." Having taken this ground, which to myself at least appears absolutely impregnable inasmuch as it is twice so particularly marked out by the Apostle, he paraphrases

Rev. xii. 6, 14.

the passage relative to the birth of the man-child, as follows. "The woman ready to be delivered brought forth a man-child, to intimate that the Christian Church should be continued by a constant succession of converts, notwithstanding all opposition. Thus Christ's kingdom. should prevail over all enemies, and break all opposition, as the ancient oracles prophesied concerning him, That he should rule all nations as with a sceptre of iron. As soon as this child was born, I beheld it caught up to God and his throne, to intimate God's care and protection of the true Christian Church, and the safety of the Church in God's protection."*

This exposition is incomparably the best that I have hitherto met with. In the first place, Mr. Lowman assigns the prophecy to its right chronological era; namely the period of the 1260 years. In the next place, he very justly, I think, supposes the travailing of the woman to "mean her fruitfulness and to denote the number of converts to true religion; rather than the afflictions of the Church on account of her profession," as Mr. Mede imagines. And he lastly adopts the most natural interpretation of the catching up of the man-child to the throne of God; namely, that it signifies the superintending care with which the Almighty for ever guards his faithful people. Yet even this exposition is not free from every objection. The question will still recur, Why should the woman be represented as bringing forth the man-child immediately before her flight into the wilderness during the 1260 days, rather than at any other era? Did she bear no spiritual children before that era? Has she borne none since? If the text indeed will sanction the gloss which Mr. Lowman has put upon it, that the bringing forth of the man-child intimates that the Christian

Lowman's Paraph. in loc. He adds in a note, "Grotius supposes, I think, with great probability, that these expressions, And her child was caught up unto God and bis throne, are an allusion to the preservation of Joash, in the time of Athaliah's usurpation, when she put to death all the rest of the royal family. (2 Kings xi. 2, 3.) Jebosbebah took Joash the son of Abaziab, and stole him from among the king's sons which were slain-And he was bid in the bouse of the Lord six years. He was kept safe in one of the chambers of the temple, till he was brought out by Jehoiada the high-priest, and restored to the kingdom of David. Thus the true worshippers of God shall not all be destroyed by the enemies of religion; some, like Joash, shall be kept safe, as if in heaven, the true temple, till they shall appear publicly with victory over their enemies."

.......

Church should be continued by a constant succession of converts, I would without hesitation adopt the whole of his exposition; but I am not perfectly satisfied, that such a gloss is allowable. Let every person however judge for himself. The symbol of the man-child has always appeared to me by far the most difficult in the whole Apocalypse; whether we consider its general interpretation, or its particular application to the prophecy in question. Hitherto I have met with no exposition, that gives me entire satisfaction: but, at the same time, I readily confess, that, after much thought and labour bestowed upon the subject, I can produce nothing that pleases me better, or indeed so well, as this exposition of Mr. Lowman.* In short, I consider the symbol of the man-child as a complete crux criticorum. Much has been written on the subject, but I have read nothing that is wholly unobjectionable. It is possible, that some future commentator may be more successful in his inquiries than those who have preceded him.

But, whatever difficulty there may be in satisfactorily interpreting the symbol of the man-child, every other symbol and every other particular in this vision are sufficiently plain. The whole prophecy relates to the persecution of the true Church, by the papal Roman empire under the influence of the devil, during the allotted period of three times and a half or 1260 days.

"And there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon: and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon

• The Jesuit Cornelius à Lapide supposes, like Mede and Lowman, that the manchild denotes the faithful people of God. Propriè et genuinè, filius masculus est populus fidelis et sanctus, quem Christo parit Ecclesia." (Comment. in Apoc. in loc.) The objection, which I urge jointly to the opinion of Mede and Lowman, he rather cuts through, than answers. "The Church," says he, "brings forth, and chiefly in the end of the world will bring forth, a masculine offspring to Christ, that is the faithful." This however by no means meets the question. The point is, if the man-child denote the whole body of the faithful, why is he said to be born at one era rather than at another? The prophecy does not represent the woman as incessantly bringing him forth. I once thought, that the man-child or the mystic Christ might denote the Tvord of God, both Christ and the Scriptures being equally so denominated by a conversion of terms not unusual among the sacred writers; and I bestowed some labour upon an attempt to prove this point: but I wholly failed of success, and I am convinced that such an exposition is altogether utenable.

was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

"And, when the dragon saw, that he was cast unto the earth, he (still) persecuted the woman, which brought forth the man-child. (Now to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle,* that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.) And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman; and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

Throughout the whole of the present prophecy, we cannot too attentively keep in mind, that the dragon is neither the Roman empire nor the Pope, although the instigator of them both, but simply the devil: for this clear discrimination of character, which the Apostle anxiously as it were insists upon, will alone lead us to a

This idea is manifestly taken from that of Exodus, wherein the sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness, from the face of the Egyptians, is described precisely in the same manner as the sojourn of the woman in the spiritual wilderness, from the face of the serpent. "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bare you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto myself." (Exod. xix. 4.) Bp. Newton, agreeably to the plan of interpretation upon which he set out, and which I cannot but think wrong, seems to imagine, that, the eagle being the Roman ensign, the tree wings may allude to the Eastern and Western empires.

right understanding of what is meant by his fall from heaven to earth. So long as Satan found an apostate Church a convenient engine for persecuting the faithful followers of Christ, just so long he continued in it: but, when the age of superstition and ecclesiastical tyranny was past; when the papal thunders were no longer regarded; and when he found, that the two witnesses ascended up into heaven, not only in Germany, but in Britain, Sweden, and Denmark, in despite of all his attempts to prevent them: then it became time for him to quit his ancient station, and to seek some more convenient battery against the symbolical woman. Driven from heaven or the Church, and finding that he could no longer execute his gigantic plans of mischief through the instrumentality of the Papacy, he next took his stand upon the earth, and again renewed his attacks upon the woman and her mystic offspring with more virulence than ever. Not but that he still retained his influence over the apostatical heaven, and over many of those stars whom his long-fostered superstition had cast down to the ground: but the Roman church was henceforth only an inferior consideration with him like a worn out instrument, its blows were not now attended with their former effects a new station must be assumed, whence in an age of literature and refinement the woman and the remnant of her seed might be assailed with a greater probability of victory. This station, we learn from the prophet, was the earth, or the secular Roman empire. Satan, no longer arrayed like an angel of light, like a minister of the Church of Christ, now assumed the garb of humanity, liberality, candour, and philosophy and prepared to vomit forth from the dark dens of atheism and infidelity that flood, with which he hoped to carry away his enemy.

Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

From this general statement, I shall descend to particulars. The war between Michael and the dragon does not, I apprehend, relate exclusively to the war between the witnesses and the beast, mentioned in the preceding chapter, although it doubtless comprehends it as a part