and ten horns, and seven
crowns upon his heads.

4. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of Heaven, and
did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the
woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child
as soon as it was born.

5. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all
nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto
God, and to his throne.

6. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a
place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a
thousand two hundred and threescore days.

The three principal objects of this vision are the woman clothed with
the sun, the man-child born of her, and a red dragon with seven heads
and ten horns. These, being drawn from nature and human life, would
point us both to the church and to the state for their fulfilment. The
symbols, also, are living agents, and we should expect the objects they
represent to be such.

This woman is an appropriate symbol of the church of God, which is
composed of living, intelligent beings; and that it is the true and not
an apostate one, is shown by the fact that upon her flight into the
wilderness she had a place prepared of God where she was nourished for
twelve hundred and sixty days. In a subsequent portion of the Apocalypse
a vile harlot is taken as the representative of the church apostate. In
this way a proper correspondence of character and quality is kept up.
This woman appeared, not in the temple above, but in the firmament of
heaven, where she was clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and
upon her head a crown of twelve stars. Thus the brightest luminaries of
heaven were gathered around her. Arrayed in this splendid manner, she is
easily distinguished from an apostate church, which would not be so
highly favored with such attire in this exalted position. Doubtless the
objects with which she is adorned have some special signification. The
moon is a fit symbol of the old covenant, above which the church had
just risen, only to be clothed in the superior brightness and glory of
the new covenant. And as the moon shines only with a borrowed light,
obtaining its illumination from the sun; so, also, the old covenant was
only a shadow of the good things to come and now stands eclipsed in the
brightness and transcendant glory of that new and better dispensation.
According to the explanation given of the seven stars in