testimony of Jesus and his apostles, than to the opinion of men; and to their testimony I now invite your attention. In the 10th chapter of St. Matthew, we read as follows; " Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye, therefore, wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men; for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your Father, which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake; but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another; for, verily, I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come." Matt. x. 16-23. Here we have the commission of the apostles; the cruel persecutions they would have to encounter; the course they should pursue under those persecutions; and the reward of their remaining faithful. Now, when would their persecutions end? and their reward be conferred? The answer is ready; When the Son of man should come. Then, of course, his coming must have been in their time, or else they could not have remained under persecution till his coming. Hence, he says, "When they persecute you in this city, flee into another; for verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come;" that is, you shall not have been driven by the hand of persecution through all the cities of Israel, before I will come and end your persecutions. You cannot say, the cities of Israel mean the whole world; for the commission of the apostles was, "Go not in the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." After his resurrection, Christ gave them a different commission. Then he said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Hence the coming spoken of cannot be yet future, one which shall take place when the gospel shall have been preached throughout every nation; it was a coming in that age, and before his apostles should have gone through all the cities of Israel. In St. Matthew, xvi. 27, 28, we read, "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." This testimony is incontrovertible. A man may as well argue against the sun, as to say, that the coming here spoken of is yet future. Terms could not be employed, which could more clearly and positively confine it to the age of Christ, than those here used. Hear it again, "There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." In what way has Mr. Miller in his Lectures disposed of this text? You will naturally conclude, that he has offered some comment upon it; that he has attempted to reconcile it with his theory in some manner; that he has not passed it in entire silence. Well, strange as it may appear, he has passed it in silence. Yea, he has done worse than this; he has quoted one part, and left out the other part. Yes, the verse which says Christ shall come in the glory of his Father, with his holy angels, to reward every man according to his work, he has quoted; but that fixing the time of his coming, he has omitted. He has handled the text just as Dr. Beecher did in a discourse delivered in this town, to prove a future judgment. He gave the first verse, "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works." So far all was well, and the proof to his mind satisfactory. He commenced on the next verse, and read, "Verily I say unto you, there be some - hem, hem!" Here he stopped; it would not do to go further, and he sought to hide his dilemma by adding, “And another Evangelist says, 'Whosoever shall deny me, him will I also deny.'' "There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." Christ, then, came at the destruction of Jerusalem. In St. Matthew, xxiv. 29-34, we have the following, respecting the coming of Christ. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig-tree: When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." - These words are part of our Lord's answer to the following questions, Tell us when shall these things be? What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world, or age? The apostles were led to ask these questions, by the declaration of the Saviour, that Jerusalem should be destroyed. This they could hardly believe; and they went to him to show him the buildings of the temple, that he might see how utterly improbable it appeared. But he replied, "See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another which shall not be thrown down." and The disciples were still more astonished, as Jesus sat upon the Mount of Olives, where he had a full view of the city, they came with the questions, When shall these things be? What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? He proceeds to reply, and his answer occupies all the remainder of the twenty-fourth chapter, and the whole of the twenty-fifth. He begins by describing the signs of this great event. First, he mentions the appearance of false Christs; but says, the end of the world or age is not yet. Next, he mentions wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes. These are, however, only the beginning of sorrows. Then he speaks of the appearance of false prophets, the prevalence of iniquity, and the falling away of many from the faith. These, then, were the signs of his coming; of the destruction of Jerusalem; of the end of the Jewish dispensation. After having described these, he says, "When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee unto the mountains; let him which is on the house-top not come down to take any thing out of his house; neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day; for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but, for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened." Here he tells them when to flee unto the mountains, and urges them to make |