with the accomplished aggregate of his elect, risen, like him, and reigning with him.

There is a man who believes that our Lord will not return in person to the earth till after the Millennium, and within about four-and-twenty hours of the final conflagration; when the earth shall be annihilated, or if not annihilated, he knows not what is to become of it; but he commonly interprets the Scripture, which says that "the earth shall be burned up as a a scroll," to signify its annihilation. Connected with this, he believes that immediately upon our Lord's coming, all men shall stand in the judgment, the quick, and all the dead from the beginning of the world; that the unbelieving shall be cast, soul and body, into hell; and the faithful taken, soul and body, to heaven, without any distinction between Jew and Gentile, between Christendom and heathen lands; except, that Christendom will be judged by the Scriptures, and the heathen by the light of conscience and the law of nature: and that, consequently, the ideas of a personal reign of Christ upon this earth, a restored Jewish nation, and a first resurrection, are nothing better than Rabbinical fancies, long since exploded from the creed of rational Christians.

Now, it is obvious, that if the first man be right, the second man is an infidel! God hath spoken many things which he does not believe. If the second man be right, the first is a visionary; inventing a revelation for himself, and calling it God's word.

The man who shall endeavour to throw scriptural light upon the subject of our Lord's glorious Advent; not by unproved assertions, however confident, but by detailed exposition and fair deduction; accompanied, not by contemptuous vituperation; but by affectionate persuasion-that man will confer a signal benefit upon the Church of Christ. I rejoice to find that so many men of God are now engaged in this long-neglected field; and as my contribution to their labours, I offer the following observations on our Lord's prophetic discourse, as recorded at large in the 24th chapter of St. Matthew, compared with the 13th chapter of St. Mark, and the 21st chapter of St. Luke.

Our Lord-by riding into Jerusalem upon an ass's colt, according to the prophecy of Zechariah; by stirring up the little children to sing Hosannahs to him, from the 118th Psalm (a Psalm always sung at the Feast of Tabernacles, the period at which the Jews expected the Messiah to appear;*) and by

* See Zech. xiv. 16-21, where the worship of the King the Lord of Hosts at Jerusalem, is connected with the keeping of the Feast of Tabernacles; and compare Matt. xvii. 4, where Peter, on seeing the Lord Jesus in his glory, accompanied by Moses and Elias, immediately suggests the preparation of tabernacles.

quoting in connection with it from the 8th Psalm, which tains a prediction of Christ's universal dominion over the (Matt. xxi. 1-16; Zech. ix. 9; Psa. viii.; Heb. ii. 6—9) given the Jews every opportunity, consistent with their free agency, of acknowledging him as the Messiah. A combination of remarkable circumstances from their own Scriptures, grouped together by the gracious management of our Lord, was pressed upon their attention: only compulsion was withheld. They were still obstinately prejudiced against him. He then, in parable, predicted their overthrow, and the transfer of the vineyard to other husbandmen. (Matt. xxi. 33-45.) They were enraged (ver. 46.) But he repeated the warning in the parable of the Marriage Supper (Matt. xxii. 1—14); silenced successively the cavils of the Herodians (16-22), the Sadducees (23-33), and the Pharisees (34-46); convincing the latter of their ignorance, by shewing that they could not tell in what sense Messiah was to be the Son of David, being called in the Psalms, David's Lord. He then denounced fearful woes against them, as hypocrites (xxiii. 1-36); wept over the city, as now devoted to destruction (37-39); and departed out of it to the Mount of Olives (xxiv. 1.) One of his disciples commented upon the beauty of the temple, which was in view, saying, Master, see what manner of stones, and what buildings are here. Jesus declared its approaching ruin: Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. Then four of his disciples, deeply impressed as it would appear by this alarming declaration, asked him privately, When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled? (Mark xiii.-1. 4.;) or, as it is in St. Matthew's narrative, Tell us when shall these things be; and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age (σurrera Tou diavos). The prophecy now to be considered is given in answer to these questions: first, "When shall these things be, which you have predicted concerning Jerusalem and her stately temple?" and, secondly, "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the winding up of the dispensation?"

Upon these questions, I offer in the first place these general remarks:

The disciples had been present when Jesus inquired of them, Whom say ye that I am? They had heard Peter's famous reply, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and the unqualified approbation which that reply met with. Consequently they were perfectly aware, that the person to whom they were speaking was the Messiah. He was there present among them, yet they ask for a sign of his coming. It is clear,

therefore, that they expected some other coming, different from that which had already taken place, and which of course required no sign. That other coming, for which they looked, was a coming of the very same Person to whom they spake: this is evident from their expression (Tns ons wagovolas). It is remarkable, that three of the four who asked him these questions, had been eye-witnesses of his glorious appearing on Mount Tabor, and had been enjoined to keep secret what they had seen, until after he was risen from the dead. They obviously expected that Jesus would come again as they had seen him in the transfiguration; and they ask for instruction as to the period of his coming, and the sign which should precede it, by which they should take warning. In proceeding to prophecy the intermediate events, and to give the signs, he of course implies that they were right in the expectation of the thing to be signified.

Again: the disciples were as yet ignorant of the purpose of God toward the Gentiles during the dispersion of Judah: the natural consequence of which was, that they expected the glorious coming of Messiah in his kingdom over Israel, and through Israel over all the earth, immediately upon the breaking up of the then existing Jewish establishments; which establishments were so interwoven in all their parts with the temple, that to predict the destruction of the temple was one and the same thing with predicting the termination of the whole system. They evidently, therefore, supposed that they were propounding an inquiry concerning events which were to be synchronical, [that is, would occur at the same time.] To predict the whole truth, without at the same time plainly announcing the Gentile dispensation (which the disciples were not then able to bear, and to which they afterwards gave a reluctant consent,) was a difficulty which Christ had to meet in wording his reply, and which in some degree accounts for the difficulty we experience in expounding that reply.

1. Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. (Matt. xxiv. 4, 5.) Your present danger lies in the expectation that the kingdom is immediately to be restored to Israel. In consequence of such an expectation, you are liable, and even likely, to be deceived by some impostor, pretending that he is Christ the King. Take heed, therefore,' &c. This part of the prophecy was accomplished in the few years which immediately followed our Lord's ascension: "Theudas arose, boasting himself to be somebody: after him, Judas of Galilee, in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him." Against such delusions the

Lord's disciples had their appropriate warning in the words just quoted.

And ye shall hear of wars, and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places. (Matt. xxiv. 6, 7.)

The wars primarily predicted in this passage were the wars of Cestius and Vespasian, Nero's generals, whose disastrous progress is so minutely detailed by Josephus. In the midst of the calamities which then befel the Jews, and threatened even Jerusalem itself, the Lord's disciples had this prophetic exhortation on record, See that ye be not troubled, accompanied by an assurance that the end of the temple and city would not be just then. This predicted respite was remarkably fulfilled. Vespasian was in a full career of success against the Jews when Nero died. This event, followed as it was by the flagrant enormities of Galba, Otho, and Vitelius,-was felt throughout the empire: it arrested Vespasian's progress, and led eventually to his being proclaimed emperor and returning to Italy, leaving the Jewish war unfinished. The end was "not yet;" the predicted destruction of the temple was reserved for Titus. In this passage, however, the language of the prophecy swells into an application to greater things than these;* and, the winding

of the Jewish dispensation being typical of the winding up of this more enlarged dispensation under which we live, the language is transferable from one to the other, and predicts political commotions towards the close of this dispensation, to be succeeded by a pause of peace previous to the end.

If, as many suppose, the French Revolution, with its accompanying symbolical plagues and earthquakes, be the commotions here predicted; then the pause in which we now breathe, since the general peace, is marked by the end is not yet. That is, the Jewish war under Vespasian was to that expiring dispensation of God's dealing with Judæa, what the French Revolution has been to this expiring dispensation of God's dealing with Christendom; the pause of peace which followed, was to that dispensation what the present interval is to this; and the conclusive war under Titus was to that, what the coming of the Son of Man will be to this. If this be so, let us remember, to our unspeakable comfort, that between the departure of Vespasian and the coming of Titus, the elect Jews were drawn out of the city, and gathered to a place of safety.

The next verse of the prophecy implies that the sorrow,

* See note, page 21.

which should begin with the close of the Jewish dispensation, would not end there, but would indeed prove only the beginning of sorrows: All these are the beginning of sorrows (ver. 8). Thus far the parallel passages in the three Evangelists agree: compare Mark xiii. 5-8, and Luke xxi. 8-11.

I

But observe the remarkable difference in the next passage. St. Matthew says, "THEN shall they deliver you to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake: implying that the predicted sufferings of Christ's disciples would be subsequent to those events which he had just characterized as the beginning of sorrows. St. Mark says, But take heed to yourselves, for they shall deliver you, &c., without saying anything as to the period. But St. Luke says, BEFORE ALL THESE, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, &c.; distinctly declaring that the persecutions of the disciples would precede the beginning of the great tribulation. Now I do not for a moment set this saying of our Lord by St. Luke against that other saying of his by St. Matthew; neither have I recourse to any verbal criticism to make them harmonize. believe they were both uttered: that in the one, the disciples personally had the needful warning for their own time; and in the other, the warning of similar affliction is extended to all faithful disciples, during the continuance of those sorrows of which the Jewish dispersion was to be the beginning. What, in this instance, was accomplished by two distinct passages, appears to me to be done in other instances, by so ordering the language as to make the same words predict two events, similar in their nature, but differing in their chronology. This I apprehend to be the structure of the prophecy in many succeeding clauses; beginning with the disciples themselves under that dispensation, and swelling into greater things, applicable to all true disciples to the end of this dispensation.

And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another; and, because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. These words presuppose not apostles and faithful disciples only, but also false professors; many of whom would be offended because of the reproach of Christ's name, and would betray their brethren: so that the deadening effects of their abounding iniquity would paralyze the church itself under a hateful lukewarmness. In the midst of this there would be many false teachers, who would deceive many or make many to wander (zavou Toλous). These words found a fulfilment in the state of things in Jerusalem previous to its destruction: and it would be difficult to find any words which contain a more accurate and comprehensive description of the state of things in Christendom at this day.