man be." That is, he comes not with a limited, bodily presence, in the wilderness or the secret chambers, but in the power of his religion overspreading the whole land, like the lightning, which, confined to no one spot, fills the whole sky. With the downfall of the Jews, the new religion will rise as the fulfilment of the old, and in its advancement Christ will manifest his presence to the world, as he did in the judgments which fell at that time upon the Jews. “For,” 28, "wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles," more properly the vultures, "be gathered together." Where moral death and corruption are, there the judgments of God, like vultures, shall come to clear away the pollutions of the land, a retribution for the past, a preparation for

the future.

Immediately after, 29, or rather in connection with, 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. Josephus speaks of "a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city; and a comet that continued a whole year." But the language is rather to be taken figuratively. "That is," says Lightfoot, "the Jewish heaven shall perish, and the sun and moon of its glory and happiness shall be darkened and brought to nothing. The sun is the religion of the church; the moon is the government of the state; and the stars are the judges and doctors of both." We doubt whether the language was intended for so specific an application. We speak of a dark and dreadful day, or a dark and troubled night, to describe a period of great public or private misery. Oriental writers. carry their figures of speech more into details than is allowed by the usages of language among us, and give the particulars which go to fill out the idea of gloom and sorrow. It is not merely a dark day, but "the sun is darkened; "—not merely a dark and dismal night of grief and pain, but its darkness, the moon refusing to give her

light, should be rendered more frightful by the portentous glare of falling stars, and in the universal consternation and distress, men's hearts failing them for fear, the very powers of the heavens should be shaken. Every source of light or hope to which men had been accustomed to look up should be withdrawn, amid troubles and terrific commotions in what had seemed to them most elevated and stable among the powers by which the order and government of the world had been sustained.

The same powerfully figurative language is continued. "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven," 30; not the sign shall appear in heaven, but, “Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man that he is in heaven." Then, when the rites of their own religion shall no longer be observed, when (Josephus, Jewish Wars, VI. 2. 1) the daily sacrifice (Dan. xii. 11) shall be taken away, and the city overthrown with such sufferings and slaughters as never had been known before, - when such unspeakable calamities have fallen upon them, then shall all the tribes of the land smite their breasts, then shall appear the sign which I have now made known to you of the Son of man in heaven, and they who refused to recognize him before shall in these events see him coming in power and great glory to establish his kingdom on the earth. "The Jews," says Kuinoel, "will recognize the majesty and power of the Messiah as their Judge, when, as a punishment for their perversity and madness, he shall mournfully exhibit them in the overthrow of their temple and city. The Hebrew prophets use the same image which occurs here. When they would describe God as declaring his majesty, they speak of him as about to come sitting upon the clouds, whether it be to bring assistance or to pass judgment (Deut. xxxiii. 26; Isa. xix. 1).”

"And," 31, "he shall send his angels," &c. "When Jerusalem shall be reduced to ashes, and that wicked nation cut off and rejected, then shall the Son of man

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send his ministers with the trumpet of the Gospel, and they shall gather together his elect of the several nations, from the four corners of heaven." Lightfoot. He shall send forth his angels, the messengers of salvation, and as with the sound of a trumpet, which was used to call religious assemblies together, he shall gather his chosen ones, i. e. those who hear and obey the call, into his Church throughout the whole earth. As a matter of fact, the religion of Jesus prevailed wonderfully after its most influential and violent opponents and persecutors had been cut off in the wars which ended with the destruction of Jerusalem. "It was after this period," as Adam Clarke has said, “that the kingdom of Christ began, and his reign was established in almost every part of the earth." That there might be no mistake as to the time included in this prophecy, and as to what was there meant by his coming and the end of the world, aon or dispensation, he distinctly generation then before him should

æon —

declares, 34, that the

not pass away till all these things were fulfilled.

36-51. THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN IN JUDGMENT TO ALL.

At the thirty-sixth verse is the point of transition from God's judgment, as shown in the destruction of a wicked city and nation, to his judgment in its wider application to the whole family of man. All that has been predicted. thus far applies primarily to the destruction of Jerusalem, and would be accomplished before that generation should pass away. In the foreground of the prophetic picture lie the events which should precede, and the circumstances of dread and horror which should accompany, that great national catastrophe. These events are distinctly portrayed and their limits fixed. But beyond them, in a background reaching onward into eternity, is another and kindred class of events, which are also denoted by the coming of the

Son of man, and of which the precise limits are not to be distinguished or defined. The time when the holy city should be overthrown had been fixed, and the signs of its approach pointed out. But of that day and hour, when this more extended series of events included in the general judgment of our race should be completed, no man could know, not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only (Mark xiii. 32). Only He whose omniscient mind takes in all causes, and sees in them all future results as already present, can determine that.

The idea which fills out the whole picture or succession of pictures, and harmonizes all their parts, is the idea of a divine retribution. This shows itself in the foreground; then, 37-39, it goes back to the times of Noah and of Lot, and from the past goes on again to the future, dwelling at first on single examples, and finally gathering up all separate incidents and souls and ages into one overpowering scene of divine majesty and justice.

At first we seem to be lingering still around Jerusalem in those days of impending ruin, as if, after its destruction had been foretold and language pointing on to a wider range of judgments had been used, he at first, in his reference to the flood and to Sodom (Luke xvii. 28), employed images equally applicable to both classes of events. From this point, however, there is nothing which can be construed as applying, like what has gone before, distinctly and exclusively to the destruction of Jerusalem. The coming of the Son of man carries us into a wider field, until at length we see the whole human family standing before him in judgment.

A great deal is said about types. May it not be that all the language relating to the destruction of Jerusalem was meant to be a type of the general judgment? Is there not this double meaning running through it? In the sense in which the expressions type and double meaning are commonly used by theologians, we answer, No.

Nothing has added so much to the perplexity and confusion of ideas in the study of this discourse, as the notion of a double meaning running through it. But, in another sense, it is typical, as every fact in nature is, of something beyond itself. A falling globule of water, as an expression of the law of gravitation, is typical of the form and motion of the stars, and thus a type of the whole frame and structure of the material universe. Almost every incident or fact mentioned by our Saviour is so put by him, that it stands forth as the expression of a general law, and the type of whatever may be brought about in accordance with that law. The clothing of the lilies, and the feeding of the ravens, as an expression. of the paternal benignity and providence of God, is made a type of the still greater kindness which he always exercises towards us. The corn of wheat (John xii. 24), which, except it fall into the ground and die, abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit, as an expression of the great law of self-sacrifice in order to the attainment of the highest results, is typical of every fact included under that law, and especially of the death of Christ and the unmeasured benefits resulting from it. So the destruction of Jerusalem, as an expression of the Divine justice, or of the judgments of God, is typical of every fact included under that law, and especially of the righteous retribution which awaits every soul, when at the close of its probation here it is called to judgment. The coming of the Son of man in the destruction which fell on a city and people hopelessly corrupt, as an expression of a great law, is typical of Christ's advent to judgment, with regard to every soul that appears before him. The difficulty usually is in detecting the deep and hidden law which serves as a bond of union between one class of facts and another. As, in natural science, superficial resemblances are disregarded, and, by a law of association which it is difficult for the uninitiated to recognize, the strawberry, the mountain-ash, the blackberry, and the apple are placed side by side in the same