that of the other disciples, in that she did not find in our Lord's death a scruple to her belief in him as the Messiah? Our Lord's words seem to intimate this. Immediately after the anointing, Judas went out to betray him, and a discussion commenced respecting the rank his followers were to hold in his kingdom, as if arising out of some remark which he had made on what Mary had done. Lastly, we read his declaration, "I appoint unto you a kingdom as Luke xxii. my Father hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at 29, 30. my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.'

NATHANAEL, AND THE THIEF ON THE CROSS.

explained.

There are two other prophetic declarations which our Lord made Luke xxiii. to individuals, and which may seem to require notice in the view 43 here taken of his prophecies. The first is that to Nathanael. 66 Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascend- John i. 51. ing and descending upon the Son of man. But if this be applicable indeed to Nathanael individually, for it is expressed in the plural, it can only be considered as a general figurative allusion to those signs of Divine communication, the miracles,' by which he was to prove that he was the Son of God, the King of Israel, and is not therefore specific enough to be classed among the prophecies.

The other was a prophetic promise relating to a state beyond the ordinary use of prophecy. We cannot recognise its fulfilment, nor was it, from its very nature, made with the common object and intent of all his prophecies, “that when these things come to pass ye may know that I am he." It is therefore rather to be classed with his other revelations of a future state, and as such belongs not to the present point of inquiry.

IV.—CONCERNING THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.

The holy city, the temple and its service, together with the existence of the Jews as a nation, comprised the externals of the old dispensation. All that was real and vital in that dispensation, had been done away with on the opening of our Lord's mission; but the closing scene, which was to annihilate the outward form, thus deprived of its living principle, was the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the dispersion of its worshippers. The visible church having been ever regarded as co-existent with, and inseparable from, the dispensation itself, the total removal of the former was the sign and pledge that the latter was indeed taken away. Until this event the slow believing Jew might have had some plea for asserting, that "in Judah alone was God known," and "that Ps. lxxvi. 1. Jerusalem was still the place where men ought to worship;" but John iv. 20.

7 The original word translated "hereafter," is rά, which means literally

"from now,

""from this time forth."

H.

E

the prophetic finger which charactered its downfal, wrote a language, the interpretation of which was well understood to be, "The kingdom of heaven is departed from thee."

No wonder then that our Lord should dwell on this subject with such minuteness and solemnity, as to give the prophecy an air of importance beyond all his others. He came to do away with the old covenant and to establish the new. This was his work, and with reference to this, the propriety of those expressions whereby he announces himself as the author of this formal consummation of his

ministry is obvious. Looking to the principle on which these remarks have proceeded, we may expect to find, too, the didactic tendency of such a prophecy bearing upon some point of proportionate consequence; and a brief analysis of the structure of its language will show that such is remarkably the case. That language may be arranged under three heads :

1. The literal description of the events prophesied; for instance, "As for these things which ye behold, the days will come in the Luke xix. 44; which there shall not be left one stone upon another.'

Mark xiii. 2;

xxi. 6.

2. The metaphorical, or rather hieroglyphic language adopted from the Jewish Scriptures, especially the prophets; for instance, Mark xiii. 25. "The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken."

3. The third source of imagery is the day of our Lord's second coming to judge the world; and as in this is suspended the moral of the prophecy, to this all further remarks will be confined.

Up to the period of our Saviour's advent, the progress of the Jewish dispensation had been so ordained, as to be made applicable in its several successive parts to the Christian, when it should be given; applicable, as the type to its counterpart, the shadow to its substance. Much of the history of the Jewish church is, according to the interpretation of inspired wisdom, a series of prophecies or emblems designed to be fulfilled in the Christian. When our Saviour came, and commenced his ministry, the closing scene of the old covenant was all that remained; and here, by a reversed order, the closing scene of the Christian dispensation was made to furnish the instruments and emblems of prophecy for the end of the Jewish. It may be necessary to explain what is meant by this assertion, before the didactic import of the prophecy so framed is pointed out.

It is not unusual to say, that our Lord has blended in this prophecy, the events of the last day with those of the downfal of Jerusalem; which is not a complete view of the case, and hardly a correct one as far as it does go. His use of these mysterious images, should rather be considered the same as his use of the hieroglyphic symbols of ancient prophecy; that is, they are employed in the prophecy only in their secondary and symbolical meaning. When, for instance, we read, that the Lord "will send his angels

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and gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of Matt. xxiv. heaven to the other," the only meaning of the description in this 31. place is, that which relates to the fate of his elect on the destruction of Jerusalem. I do not deny that it is capable of another interpretation, and that it is a description of part of the last day's eventful scene; nay more, I should say, that is its literal and original meaning; and I should say in like manner of the expressions, the stars falling from heaven," and "the sun being turned into darkness,' that if they were not taking a part, as it were, in the figurative representation of prophecy, they would signify the actual derangement of the heavenly system. But as, in this latter case, the descriptions are here introduced only in their secondary application, so we may conclude that in the former instance the same only is intended. For it is to be observed, that all the revelation concerning the last day contained in these prophecies had been previously detailed in one form or another. The revelation had been already made, and this was only an adaptation of its imagery to the destruction of Jerusalem. The propriety of this method is another question; but those who are disposed to regard it as intricate and unnatural, should remember, that the revealed circumstances of the last day, had to the mind of a believer already assumed the form and certainty of recorded events, and admitted, in an address to him, of the same use as historical facts. For, to a believer, what is prophecy but anticipated history?

Such appears to be the true character of this prophecy. At the same time, that some indistinctness and confusion should exist in a cursory view of it is natural enough, considering that a portion of its imagery is derived from a state of things which " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." It is the necessary result of our want of an appropriate and literal language for unearthly revelation. All description of such mysteries can only be composed of terms adopted or metaphorical; and where (as in this prophecy) a second transfer of these terms has been made, it is not immediately obvious, whether the objects from which that language is borrowed, be those whose original property it is, or those others which have invaded, and taken possession of it, for want of a language of their own.

But if the introduction of these topics into the prophecy in question was not made with a view to reveal the mysteries of the last day, what was the intent? It has been already suggested, that the fate of Jerusalem probably represented the fate of the old dispensation. Now if the end of the world was to the Christian dispensation what the destruction of Jerusalem was to the Mosaic, the inference forced on men's minds by having these two corresponding events continually brought in close connexion before them was, that Christianity was the final covenant of God with man, that Christ having once come, we were never to look for another Mediator, and another dispensation.

That such was actually the impression wrought by these means on the earliest ages, may be not unfairly presumed, from the transition which soon took place in the application of the terms, "the last days," "the end of the world," &c. First adopted as descriptive of the end of Jerusalem, from the hint they continually afforded, by the mode of their use, that Christianity was the final dispensation, they gradually came to be used for the whole Christian period, considered in that light. Thus the Epistle to the Hebrews (the main object of which is to assert this very truth) opens with a contrast between the old and the new covenants, and designates the Heb. i. 1, 2. period of the latter by "these last days." God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past by the prophets unto the fathers, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son."

Matt. iv. 1;

Luke iv. 2.

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In short, the images of the end of the world were first employed in our Saviour's prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, in the same manner as if, using hieroglyphics, he had expressed that event by a picture of the circumstances under which the world was to end: in his choice of these images he probably designed to inculcate the doctrine, that Christianity was the final dispensation of God to mankind; and from the impression thus produced, the phrases, “the last days," the "end of the world," and the like, came to signify the whole period of the Christian dispensation, viewed in the light of God's final covenant with his creatures.

VI.THE TEMPTATION AND TRANSFIGURATION.

THERE are two events in our Saviour's history, which, although not generally considered as making part of his ministry to man, yet are so far mysteriously connected with it as to deserve a particular notice. The first is,

THE TEMPTATION.

In the exposition of this, more perhaps than of any other passage Mark 1. 13 of Scripture, the theologian requires to be reminded of his proper province. Many, exercising their ingenuity in the unprofitable attempt to explain the real nature of those mysteries which God has disclosed to us, instead of their reference to us, have made it, and other awful and glorious spectacles of revelation, subjects of contemplation and wonder, rather than symbols of instruction. Revelation has been fitly called "Light." Its great author has designated himself as Light." But it is a light to see by, not to gaze at. It is analogous, not to any dazzling meteor in the appearance of nature, or to any splendid spectacle produced by art, but to that glorious luminary, which is not the less serviceable in enabling us to be sure of our path, that we cannot stedfastly behold it.

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Out of this arises another error. Mistaking the character of theological knowledge, we naturally mistake its extent and limits. If a subject be proposed to us, the real nature of which we are to

study, it seems just and reasonable that it should be placed before us in a complete form. If agriculture, for instance, had been a subject of revelation, men would doubtless not only have been instructed in the right method of preparing the earth, but the necessity of sowing the seed; and whatever else might be requisite to secure a complete harvest, would have been included in the revelation. Accordingly the theologian who expects so to understand such parts of the scheme of redemption as have been revealed, as if the knowledge were absolute and not relative, naturally attempts to fill up that scheme, so as to make all appear rational, intelligible, wise, merciful,—in short, perfect. All which is contrary to Scripture. For, St. Paul affirms, in the first place, that "now 1 Cor. xiii. we see through a glass darkly," and secondly, that "we know in part. Scenes infinitely more mysterious, unaccountable, and awful than the temptation, or even than the death of Christ, may have taken place in the scheme of man's redemption, of which we know no more than the unborn does of life. And even with regard to those points which are revealed, we shall strangely bewilder,ourselves if we so use them, as forgetting that they are lights to see by, not to look at.

12, 9.

The character and design of the temptation may perhaps be best understood by contrasting it with the crucifixion. The former was the commencement, the latter the close of Christ's work. They correspond, too, in one remarkable circumstance. Each was the hour of Satan. In the first, Christ was led into the wilderness purposely to be tempted by him, and that ended, the devil departed from him "for a season. That the concluding scene of his minis- Luke iv. 13. try was the occasion when he was permitted to return, and once more to display the utmost exertion of his power, is not only probable from the character of the event, but seems to be clearly intimated by our Saviour's words, "This is your hour, and the power Luke xxii. 53. of darkness; "The prince of this world cometh.'

John xiv. 30.

16,

Now the great object of Christ's ministry was to undo the mischief which the evil being had done. And this was twofold: first, he had introduced into the world sin; secondly, he had introduced death. Now it is admitted by all rational Christians, that the solemn spectacle on the cross had reference to the latter. Christ's death there is said to be vicarious, that is, he died instead of those who were the proper subjects of death: he died, "that whosoever John ii. 15, believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life;" in other words, he died for his Church. In the mysterious scene of the crucifixion, he may be considered as representing the universal Church, undergoing (as it must collectively, and in its members separately) the mortal decay and dissolution of this world, but escaping from the spiritual evils accompanying that decay and dissolution in a world to come. Christ died and rose again from the dead, in order to exhibit death as it was in future to take place; that is