amputated:  some expired under the lash, others in the flames, others again were transfixed with arrows:  and a simple speedy death was mercy which they could rarely obtain."[5] Thus the dragon’s power was in his mouth, issuing bloody edicts to “slay the innocent;” while “his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth.”  They prostituted their ministry to sustain the policy of the beast.  “The ancient and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.” (Is. ix. 15.) Thus it is that pastors, fond of show and ambitious of worldly distinction, attach themselves to the train of earthly thrones and dignities, and so constitute and perpetuate the antichristian confederacy against the “woman”—­the true church.  During the first six hundred years of the Christian era the woman had been “travailing” to bring forth a holy progeny.  All this time the dragon’s “eyes are privily set against the poor.” (Ps. x. 8.) The allusion is here to the cruel edict of Pharaoh (Exod. i. 16; Acts vii. 19.) The great city where the witnesses are slain is “spiritually called Egypt.” (ch. xi. 8.) By a like form of speech, Pharaoh is called “the great dragon,” (Ezek. xxix. 3; Is. li. 9.) It should be noted, that the Roman empire, the beast, in all its heads and horns is actuated by the devil,—­before as well as after its dismemberment, from the time of Romulus its founder, till its overthrow by the third woe.  At the time referred to in the text, when the empire has “assumed the livery of heaven,”—­professedly in the interest of Christ, then it is that the devil bestirs himself.  Like his prototype, he dreads the growth and power of the woman’s offspring.  Under pagan Rome’s persecutions, “the more God’s people were afflicted, the more they multiplied and grew.”  Now the adversary shapes his policy accordingly.—­“Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply.”—­His avowed object is, to “devour the child as soon as it is born,”—­by persecution to prevent ministers from laboring to convert sinners to God; and to destroy all who “as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word.”—­The woman had still “strength to bring forth.”—­“She brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.”—­With united voice papists and prelates declare, this child can be no other than Constantine the first Christian emperor.  The very fact that this interpretation comes from such a source, may well suggest suspicion as to its correctness.  Two considerations demonstrate the error of this prelatic interpretation, besides the fact that it is prelatic.  Constantine had gone the way of all the earth some hundreds of years before the birth of this child.  And again, the eternal Father never made the promise to Constantine or any other earthly monarch, to which the apostle John here refers. (Ps. ii. 8, 9.) This promise is obviously made to the Lord Christ.  But it is objected by those learned expositors,—­much