Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/123

 to the blessed Virgin Mary, the all-pure Mother of God, for she might well be compared to a woman "clothed with the sun," seeing that she was "full of the grace of God," as the angel Gabriel had declared of her, "Hail full of grace," (Luke i. 28), "the Lord is With thee;" that is, she was filled with God, and might well, therefore, be compared to a woman clothed with the sun, for the sun was an emblem of God; and the moon was said to be under the feet of Mary, because the moon symbolized the variable and empty things of this life, which our blessed Lady trod under her feet: while the crown of twelve stars, that encircled her head, signified, on the one hand, the twelve patriarchs of the people of Israel, and the twelve tribes into which that people was subdivided, and, on the other, the twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, who were the chosen patriarchs of the Christian Church, that is, of the children of Mary, for, in the strictest sense of the term, Mary, as the Mother of Christ, is also the mother of all those who are born again in Christ, and who were all committed to her maternal keeping by Christ upon the cross in the person of John the beloved disciple. And when, in the fifth verse, the Prophet tells us, that "She brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod, and her