hundred years spurned and blasphemed; and perceiving that he returns their Friend, causing mercy to triumph over justice, they will be overwhelmed with mingled shame and remorse, and fear and gratitude, and faith and love. No event short of this can fulfil the words of the Lord by the Prophet Zechariah: "In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David : and the house of David shall be as God, as the Angel of the Lord, before them. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication: and they shall look upon Me, whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart, and their wives apart.....In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness" (Zech. xii. 8—14; xiii. 1.) That no such favour was shewn to the Jews as that which is here promised, nor any such penitential mourning awakened among them as that which is here described, at the time that the Messiah was pierced by them, is matter of notoriety. The facts of the case were precisely the reverse. Instead of Jerusalem being defended, it was destroyed: instead of penitent bitterness of spirit amongst the inhabitants thereof, there was the most hardened obduracy. Yet the single clause of the prophecy which says, "They shall look on Him whom they have pierced," is quoted, John xix. 37 as applicable at the moment of the crucifixion;-applicable, however, it is manifest, as identifying the person crucified with the person predicted by Zechariah; but not as supplying the fulfilment of the whole strain of Zechariah's prophecy. That remains to be fulfilled in the day when the Crucified One shall re-appear upon the earth.

With this important corroboration of our exposition, we return to Matt. xxiv. Having concluded his prophecy, our Lord proceeds to instruct his disciples, by a parable, how they might be sure of the final accomplishment of all he had said (vers. 32-34). 'When you see the fig-tree bud, you hail it as a sign and pledge of the summer and harvest. So, also, when you shall see the destruction of the temple, the dispersion of the Jewish nation, and the beginning of the great tribulation, you may hail all these things as a sign and pledge of the finishing of that tribulation, and the coming of the Son of Man at the end of it.'"All these things," in verse 33, must be thus limited for if they be under

stood to include more than the beginnings of the prophecy, there will be no force in the parable; for "all these things" would then include as signs those very events of which they were to be the signs. "All these things" which the disciples were to see (ver. 34) and hail as signs, correspond, therefore, with the budding of the fig-tree, and mean the dispersion of the Jews and the beginning of the sorrows. Verily I say to you,' added our Lord,' All these things shall be fulfilled-the fig-tree shall bud-before this generation passes away.' As if he had said, 'The whole prophecy, in all its periods, is aptly represented by the whole season of a fig-tree. While I speak, it is winter: the fig-tree is bare, the prophecy has no fulfilment. Before this generation of men shall pass away, it will be spring: the fig-tree shall bud, the prophecy shall have a commenced fulfilment in the destruction of Jerusalem. This you, my disciples, shall see. From this you may argue surely, and expect confidently the summer and harvest. The fig-tree shall blossom and bear fruit: the prophecy shall make progress in fulfilment, the great tribulation shall run its course, and the Son of Man shall come. Heaven and earth

shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away?'

We now proceed to the practical application of this prophecy, as pressed by our Lord, under the two heads of watchfulness and diligence, to the end of the chapter, and enforced by two parables in the chapter following.

"As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be: for as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and knew not, until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." They knew not! But had they not been told? Yes, verily Noah preached to them of righte ousness and judgment to come; he builded the ark also, and thereby gave them warning; by which, as it is written, he condemned the world. They had heard, therefore, that the flood was coming; and many, very many of them must have joined Noah in making visible preparation for it; yet our Lord says, "They knew not, till the flood came." This opens a truly deceitful mine of the human heart: and as it was then, so it is now. It is possible to hear of the coming King, the coming judgments, and the coming kingdom, and to be constrained to admit the justice of the statements, not seeing how the arguments advanced can be refuted-nay, not only so, but to take a liking for the subject, to find in it a comprehensiveness, a depth of intellectual exercise, an excitement of political application, which invests it with a very animating interest; and thereupon to become a zealous advocate for it, a champion in the controversy

excited by it: and yet to be without part or lot in its blessedness; never really to embody it in your instinctive creed, so as to make it your own; and, after all, to have it truly said of you, in the sense now before us, that you knew it not till it came. Here, as in every other branch of it, salvation is by grace. The natural workings of the mind and heart of man are easily mistaken for the energizings of the Holy Ghost. The study of prophecy may be as formal as the profession of orthodoxy; and the formal student, as well as the formal professor, may live and die at enmity against God, and be cast into the damnation of hell.

You know that the Lord is coming, and shall come; but you know not the time. "Watch, therefore if the good-man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house. to be broken up. Therefore, be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh." It is very evident that the disciples and first Christians lived under this lively impression, and were persuaded that the day of the Lord's coming was at hand. They turned from idols to serve the living God, and to wait for his Son from heaven. Their conversation was in heaven, from whence they looked for the Lord Jesus Christ to come and change their bodies into the likeness of his risen body. The Apostles, instead of referring to the believer's death, and holding out the disembodied state as the object of the church's proximate hope, addressed the brethren on this wise: "Ye come behind us in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." "The Lord is at hand. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord." "Stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." "Be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." "And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

The church of the Thessalonians was so impressed by this and similar language, that the Apostle Paul was taught of the Holy Ghost to explain to them that the great tribulation, spoken of by the Lord Jesus, must intervene : for that the Son of Man would not come until first the man of sin was revealed, arrogating to himself the incommunicable attributes of God. This is the subject of 2 Thess. ii. 1-8. This must have caused the animating expectation of the immediate coming of the Lord to have subsided in the church. It was necessary that it should be so the truth of the case required it. But, to guard the faithful against the despondency in the first instance, and afterwards the unbelief likely to arise from this, a detailed description of the progress of the great tribulation was revealed, as we have seen, to St. John, and by him communicated to all the churches.

Now, then, that the man of sin has been revealed: now that the mystery of iniquity has been working, not in its secret spirit only (in which sense it is in the nature of every fallen man, and did begin to oppose the Gospel, even in the Apostles' days), but also in its open form, as the manifest usurper of the government of Melchisedek, wearing on the same head, in antichristian combination, the crown and the mitre: now that the great tribulation has been running its course, and such signs as are predicted to mark the termination of it are starting into more and more manifest existence in every kingdom of Europe: now, the impression which animated and supported the first disciples in all their troubles, but which afterwards died away in the church, should revive and reanimate us, and set us upon such a course of holy devoted activity and self-denial, as would require the very impression which caused it to support us under. it. For, mark! let the prophetic numbers be calculated as they may, at the longest feasible calculation the time is now short; and the Lord Jesus has said distinctly, that the last days of the time shall be shortened, for the elect's sake-how much shortened he has not said. Therefore, if we could surely calculate the numbers of the times given by Daniel and John, and if we could successfully demonstrate that our calculation is correct to a day and an hour; yet, still, of the exact time of our Lord's coming no man could know: but one thing we know, the time covered by the prophetic numbers shall not be lengthened. The impression made upon the disciples, therefore, though proved to be premature in their case, is exactly the impression which should be made upon us, and which will not prove to be premature in our case. Combined with the certainty of the event and the well-grounded conviction of its nearness, there remains uncertainty as to the time; and my mind has been much affected by observing how this, like every other branch of Divine truth, works two ways. To those who are watching, the uncertainty, by keeping them watching, is a savour of life unto life: to those who are careless, the uncertainty, by leaving them in their carelessness, is a savour of death unto death. It was to deepen the impression of these points that the parable of the Ten Virgins was spoken. It marks the state of affairs at the time of the end among those who had received warning. THEN (mark the connection with the xxiv th chapter-then) shall the kingdom of heaven be likened, &c. All the ten had so far taken warning and embraced the hope, that they seemed to be waiting for the expected Bridegroom. Had he arrived at that instant, all the ten would have entered in to the marriage: but he tarried: his delay put their constancy to the test. It is endurance that proves principle. It is "to him that overcometh," the promises are made. They sunk under the trial, five of them to rise no

more. The day of the Lord's coming will prove, to many avowed expectants of it, a day of surprise, and a day of separation. This is the connection of the fortieth and forty-first verses with the thirty-ninth. There shall two be in one field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two virgins shall be waiting for the marriage; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two ministers shall be officiating in the church; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two magistrates shall be sitting on the bench; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two farmers shall be bargaining in the market; the one shall be taken, and the other left-"Where, Lord? And Jesus answered, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together" (Luke xvii. 37). "Watch, therefore; for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man

cometh *."

It has been already proved, that the coming of the Lord, here spoken of, can be no other than his last personal advent: and how, I ask, could such language as this be used, if the Millennium be antecedent to that advent? Should it be replied, that after the Millennium Satan is again to deceive the nations of the earth, and re-introduce a state of things similar to that in the days of Noah and Lot, and that to that period the language before us applies; I observe, first, that this supposition implies that during some intervening period a different state of things shall have been introduced. In fact, it asserts that the Millennium shall intervene. I then compare it with the Lord's description of the whole interval between his first and second coming (Matt. xiii. 24—30, 38—43): Let both grow together UNTIL the harvest. The harvest is the end of this dispensation; when the Son of Man shall return, with the holy angels, who are the reapers. Let both tares and wheat grow together, is characteristic of the whole period of the Lord's absence. Now I ask, is this phrase, let both grow together, equally characteristic of the Millennium and of this dispensation? If it be answered, yes; I cannot for a moment dispute that such a Millennium will precede the coming of the Lord: we have it already. The Millennium predicted by the Holy Ghost is not, however, so motley a concern as this would make it. Its characteristics are, the people shall be ALL righteousThey shall all know the Lord, from the least of them unto the greatest of them-They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain-The earth shall be covered with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea -From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in EVERY place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a PURE offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. These, and similar predictions, manifestly describe a state of things contrasted with the present. That state is the Millennium. The tares must be removed previous and preparatory to the Millennium. The season of the removal of the tares is the harvest. The harvest is the period of the Lord's coming with the holy angels. Consequently, the Lord's coming must be previous and preparatory to the Millennium.

It may here be remarked, how every sectarian effort to get what they call a pure church, is a petty attempt to antedate the Millennium by the removal of the tares. In all such attempts the wheat also is removed, and the scheme proves abortive. A visible church, and open communion, correspond with our Lord's let both grow together until the harvest. Then, indeed, " the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous."