rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God and to his throne."
Now that this woman is the Church, and that this child is the Saviour, will not admit of one single doubt. Because it is said that the child shall rule all nations, no promise has ever been made to any other child that has ever been born, that he should rule all nations; but the promise to this child is that he shall rule all nations with a rod of iron; and he was caught up unto God and His throne.
Now this agrees exactly with our Saviour's own teaching in the parable of the wicked husbandmen. In that parable our Saviour says, in the twenty-first chapter of Matthew, that "There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: and when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive of the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took the servants, and beat one, and killed another, and
