As was natural to one who looked with equal ease and clearness through the physical and the spiritual world, his thought and his language go easily from one to the other, and often without any word to mark the point of transition. The destruction of Jerusalem, which is so distinctly foretold as the judgment of God on a wicked people, is to him an emblem, or rather the foreground, of the judgments which reach on from their early indications and partial fulfilment here to their perfect consummation hereafter. It is difficult for us who are shut up so closely within the senses to understand the true perspective in the views of one who with equal ease comprises both worlds within the sphere of his vision. The present glances on to the future, and the future throws back its light or its shadows into the present. The two worlds are united and blended by almost insensible gradations into one comprehensive plan. The sharp distinctions by which they are separated to us are hardly recognized by him. This mortal life, with its germ of immortality unfolding itself here, is only the beginning of the eternal life which reaches through the everlasting ages. The horizon of his thought lies always in that higher life and world; and unless we constantly recognize this fact, we can hardly understand aright any word that he uttered. Least of all can we understand the prophetic imagery by which he lays before us the future judgments of God, which display them partially here and perfectly hereafter. From the foreground of visible circumstances and events he is constantly following his principles on to the vast and mysterious background beyond. There is no dark line of separation between the two, and we may not always be able to determine when the scenery is shifted from one to the other.

1-35. THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN IN JUDGMENT TO THE JEWS.

Bearing these remarks in mind, we shall endeavor to explain the extraordinary predictions before us. In the previous chapter we are told that Jesus pointed out the causes of the national ruin, and foretold the destruction of Jerusalem. On leaving the temple, the disciples, as if incredulous, and supposing that they must have misunderstood what he had said, came to call his attention to the buildings within the sacred enclosure, and the immense. stones of which they were composed. In this way they probably meant to indicate to him that it was impossible that the destruction of the city and temple which he had foretold should take place. Titus himself, after he had taken the city, when examining the strength of its fortifications, is represented by Josephus (Wars of the Jews, VI. 9. 1) as expressing a similar thought. "We have certainly," he said, "had God for our assistant in this war; and it was no other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications. For what could the hands of men, or any machines, do towards overthrowing these towers?" Jesus knew the thought of his disciples. He also knew that walls and towers and the most desperate courage furnish no adequate security for a hopelessly corrupt and wicked people. He therefore replied to his disciples only by repeating more explicitly what he had already said. “See ye not all these things; verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here a stone upon a stone which shall not be thrown down." In less than forty years from the time when these words were spoken, i. e. in September, A. D. 70, Jerusalem was taken, and the temple was utterly destroyed, in spite of the earnest efforts of Titus, the Roman general, to save it. Dr. Robinson (Researches, &c., I. p. 436) says of Matt. xxiv. 1, 2: “This language was spoken of the buildings of the temple, the splendid fane itself, and its magnificent

porticos; and in this sense the prophecy has been terribly fulfilled, even to the utmost letter. Or, if we give to the words a wider sense, and include the outer works of the temple, and even the whole city, still the spirit of prophecy has received its full and fearful accomplishment; for the few substructions which remain serve only to show where once the temple and the city stood."

After Jesus had uttered this prediction, he went out to the Mount of Olives. While he was sitting there, four of his disciples, Peter, James, John, and Andrew (Mark xiii. 3), came to him privately, and asked when these things should be. "And what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?" These last two events, however imperfectly understood by the disciples, were grouped together, and evidently regarded by them as belonging to the same grand manifestation of the Messiah's kingdom. From 4 to 35 is the reply to their question. The principal subject is the destruction of Jerusalem, and the signs which should precede and accompany it, interspersed with such cautions and warnings as might be useful to his followers. First, he warns them, 5, against the false Christs, whose pretensions and influence in leading men astray would be a natural consequence of the feverish and mistaken expectations of the Messiah on the part of the Jews. Then, 6, 7, shall be wars and rumors of wars, nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes. Yet all these, 8, are only the beginning of sorrows, the beginning of the death-agony in which the old order of things should perish, and of the birth-throes by which the world should be born into a higher life. Then shall succeed, 9, persecutions and martyrdoms; many, 10, shall be offended, and they shall betray and hate one another. False prophets, 11, who usually abound amid the superstitious fears which mark the great epochs of national corruption, shall rise and lead many astray, and, 12, because of iniquity many will be discouraged, and their love shall

grow cold. But, he says, 13, rising in thought from these earthly calamities to the higher life into which the faithful shall enter, "He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." (See Rev. ii. 10.) The Gospel, 14, must first be preached in all the world, i. e. through all the known world, or the Roman empire.

Here were the signs which should precede the great event, and bring on the end. How far were they fulfilled? Any one who will read from the latter part of the second to the fifth Book of the Jewish Wars, by Josephus, may see how exactly, in its general features, the condition of the Jews, and of the Roman empire, as it appeared to the Jews during the few years previous to the destruction of Jerusalem, corresponded to the picture here given. The Jews were engaged in wars against one another, and in fatal outbreaks against the Romans. "War in the immediate neighborhood," says Stier, "ever growing alarms in the distance, terrifying rumors of war, commotions and tumults of the people against each other, this is in reality, on the small scale, the picture of the time as described by Josephus, which, with every year, became more exactly applicable. The wars were certainly, at that time, more of the nature of insurrections, tumults here and there (Luke xxi. 9), manifold commotions and massacres, for example, between the Syrian and Jewish inhabitants in the cities (nation against nation), such as are to be read of in Josephus, Jewish Wars, II. 17, 10, 18, 1-8: according to his expression, 'every city was divid ed into two opposing hosts." " Confidence between man and man was lost. Governments were overthrown. The ties by which society is kept together were dissolved, and the wretched superstitions and fanatical pretensions which mark the absence of a living faith abounded and prevailed.

As to the literal fulfilment of the prophecy, point by point, in its minute specifications, history furnishes no sufficient materials for the decision. Christian writers, by whom alone any account could be given of the false Christs, 5, have left

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no records of the events belonging to that period, beyond what we gather from the later writings of St. Paul (2 Tim. iii. 1-13) and St. John. Commentators adduce from different historians of that period accounts of famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, enough to give a coloring of plausibility to the doctrine of a literal fulfilment of ver. 7; but we have not the historical details which are needed in order to put ourselves into the position of those who lived at that time, and to determine how they were affected by these events. For this reason, in accordance with the view which we have taken of our Saviour's gift of prophecy, and also in accordance with the poetical and prophetic use of language, we incline to regard the latter part of ver. 7 as carrying out in a figurative form the idea begun in the first clause of the sentence : nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines [Tischendorf omits "pestilences"] and earthquakes," i. e. great privations, sufferings, and commotions in divers places. As to the persecutions, 9, Peter, and Paul, and James the brother of John, and probably many others, were put to death before the destruction of Jerusalem. The manner in which some of the early Christians were led to betray and hate one another may be inferred from Tacitus (Ann. XV. 44), where, in giving an account of the destruction of the Christians at Rome by Nero A. D. 64, he says, that " some of them were taken who confessed, and through them as informers a great multitude were seized," and exposed to cruel tortures and death. Eusebius, referring to Vespasian as emperor, says (H. E. III. 8), “ At that very time the sound of the sacred Apostles had gone out to all the earth, and their words to the uttermost parts of the world," the word used by him for world being the same that is used in the passage before us, ver. 14. St. Paul (Col. i. 23) speaks of the Gospel, which then, about A. D. 63, “was preached to every creature which is under heaven.”

The preliminary signs are now finished. "Then shall the end come." The last and fatal series of events is at hand.