Wherefore,

to confidence in the family relations, and faith is dying out, then, in the convulsive throes and agitations of society, bold, bad men are in the ascendant; impostors and deceivers reign amid the general wreck of earthly interests and heavenly hopes; with an insane and frantic desperation men rush into any extravagant delusions that are impudent enough to promise relief. The most reckless credulity, at such times, succeeds to an utter want of faith, in sudden and frenzied alternations. The dissolution of society, the disintegration of all the elements of social, moral, and religious influence, the universal breaking up, which comes as "the end of the world" (σuvredeía roû aiŵvos) to the old and long established order of things, are marked by these wild and terrific changes and exaggerations. It was so in the breaking up of the Jewish polity. It was so in Rome, where at about the same time, amid similar commotions and catastrophes in the moral and social condition of the people, the dissolution of the old civilization was preparing a way for the introduction of higher ideas in the coming of the Son of man. But there never was a period in the Roman history when such extravagances of superstitious credulity, accompanied by all the worst sorts of religious imposture, prevailed, as in that unbelieving and godless age. Against such times and dangers, though they had not begun to show themselves when he spoke, Jesus

uttered these distinct and solemn warnings. With his profound and prophetic insight into the human soul, and into the moral relations of cause and effect, he saw then the seeds of impiety and superstition,

credulity and unbelief, which must bring forth such a harvest of deception and crime, and thus, in the overthrow of the past, prepare the way for the introduction of the new dispensation. Compare with this the prophecies (before quoted) in the last two chapters of Malachi; and the destructive and warlike processes by which the kingdom spoken of in the one hundred and

tenth Psalm was to be established. See note, xxiii. 39. 26. Wherefore, if they shall say unto you] "Christ here mentions the very places where these deceivers would appear, and Josephus tells us, that impostors, under pretence of a divine inspiration, endeavored to introduce novelty and change, and raised the common people to such a degree of madness, that they drew them forth into the desert, pretending that God would there make them see the tokens of liberty, i. e. of their being rescued from the Roman yoke. He also mentions some who appeared in secret chambers, or places of seKenrick. curity in the city.'

27. so shall also the coming of the Son of man be] He was to come in judgment to the Jews, the end of the world to them, for their world, age, or disbut at pensation was now to end, the same time he was to come in his religion, with a new world, age, or dispensation, to those who would Herein his coming receive him. then was an emblem of his final coming to all, in judgment and with the loss of all that they most valued to the unfaithful and unbelieving, to those who have lived only for this world; with a new world of life and joy to the penitent and the faithful who believe in him.

29. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened] "A day of darkness' is an obvious figure for a day of distress.' Hence, in the Oriental style, a time of utter calamity, the destruction of a nation, is described by the extinction of the sun, and the other lights of heaven. Thus Isaiah (xiii. 9, 10), in speaking of the destruction of Babylon, says: 'Behold, the day of Jehovah is coming, cruel with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate and to destroy its sinners out of it. For the stars of heaven and its constellations shall not give their light, and the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.' So also Ezekiel, describing the fall of Egypt (xxxii. 7, 8)." Norton's Translation of the Gospels, II. 528.

30. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven] The fulfilment of the events here predicted would be a sign of the Son of man in heaven; and while all the tribes of the land

not of the earth should smite their breasts and mourn, they would recognize in these calamities, which he had foretold as the downfall of their polity and their nation, the evidence of his truth, and in them would see him coming as on the clouds of heaven, and with power and great glory, to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth. in the clouds of heaven] This was an image familiar to the Jews, and was perhaps derived, in the first instance, from the pillar of cloud which went before them in the wil

derness as an emblem of God's providential care and presence.

The glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud." (Ex. xvi. 10.) God "called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud." (Ex. xxiv. 16.) From these and similar expressions often repeated in the Pentateuch, the idea of any special act of Divine interference with human affairs would naturally clothe itself in imagery of this sort. Thus when Isaiah (xix. 1) would represent God as about to punish the Egyptians, he says, "Behold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt." The language of course was figurative. God was not represented as visibly or actually riding on a cloud. So in the passage before us, this image of impressive grandeur is employed to describe the majesty of the Son of man when he shall come in judgment to the Jews, i. e. in the power of those divine principles of justice, which, as embodied in his religion, were then to be enforced, and by which the way was to be prepared for the wide and speedy establishment of the kingdom of heaven, i. e. of his religion on the earth. 31. And he shall send his angels] Literally, his messengers. In the Gospels the word angel is almost always used to denote heavenly beings. But there are exceptions.

"And when the messengers [angels] of John had departed." (Luke vii. 24.) "This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger [angel] before thy face." (Luke vii. 27.) When Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he "sent messengers [angels] before

These

his face." (Luke ix. 52.) passages are all from Luke. In the other Gospels there is, we believe, no instance of a similar use of the word, unless in the case before us. In the Apocalypse (ii. 1, 8, 18; iii. 1) the expression "angel of the angel of the church" is evidently applied to the minister or bishop of the church. And this, we suppose, is the meaning of the word in the passage before us. When the hitherto powerful elements of Jewish hostility should be overthrown and destroyed, and the way open everywhere for the more rapid diffusion of the Gospel, the Son of man would send forth his messengers with a great sound of a trumpet-the trumpet the trumpet was used by the Jews to call religious assemblies together as heralds of salvation, to gather together his chosen ones, i. e. those who would hear and obey the call, from every quarter under heaven. They who were ready to hear and obey would thus be gathered into his church. 32. Now learn

a parable of the fig-tree] "On my first arrival in the southern part of Syria, near the end of March, most of the fruit-trees were clothed with foliage, and in blossom. The fig-tree, on the contrary, was much behind them in this respect, for the leaves of this tree do not make their appearance till comparatively late in the season. As the spring is so

far advanced before the leaves of the fig-tree begin to appear, (the early fruit, indeed, comes first,) a person may be sure, when he beholds this sign, that summer is at hand." Hackett. 33. know that it is near] When ye shall see all these signs fulfilled, then know that

it- the coming of the Son of man in the destruction of Jerusalem is near, nay, is at your very doors.

34. This generation shall not pass] In order to impress it upon his disciples' minds that he was not speaking of some event in the remote and indefinite future, he fixes the time, as in Matt. xvi. 28, within the lifetime of some of those who belonged to that generation. This definite limitation of time confines the signs thus far mentioned to a period harmonizing with their consummation in the destruction of Jerusalem and the events. immediately preceding and following it. At the same time, we must admit that much of the language, which was unquestionably spoken with a specific reference to that class of events, may be read now with something of a personal application to ourselves. 36. But

of that day and hour] The obvious interpretation of this passage is, that though all these things shall take place before the present generation shall pass away, yet no one knows the precise day and hour of their fulfilment. But there is another interpretation which seems to us more in accordance with our Saviour's usual method of instruction, mingling together as he often does things temporal and things eternal, and passing almost insensibly from the one order of facts and events to the other. The language which heretofore, in pointing to a single event, overflows with thoughts and images that reach beyond it, here ceases to dwell on the single instance of divine retribution as the principal topic, and, touching only incidentally on circumstances con

nected with it, holds up, in the background, the termination of our human and mortal life, and the retributions which shall then succeed. The transition from the specific to the universal is indicated, if not distinctly announced, by the words employed. "The Lord," says Bengel," shows the time of the temple and of the city in ver. 32-34; he denies in this verse that the day and hour of the world [to each soul] are known. The particle dé, but, implies a contrast: the pronouns ταῦτα, these, αὕτη, this, refer to events close at hand; the pronoun ékeivŋs, that, to that which is distant.' These things of which I have been speaking shall all take place in the present generation; but of that day and hour [when the Son of man in a still higher sense shall come no one knoweth. That day is several times used in this sense. "In that day many shall say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in thy name, &c. And then will I confess to them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye workers of iniquity." (Matt. vii. 22, 23.) Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day." (2 Tim. iv. 8.) Some commentators suppose that there is no such transition as we have here suggested, but that the whole discourse of our Saviour down to the end of the twenty-fifth chapter relates to the destruction of Jerusalem. It requires much ingenuity to apply all his words to that subject, and

the majestic images which he employs seem to us degraded by such à limitation of their meaning. But why, if he passed from one subject to the other, did he not more distinctly indicate the point of transition? We can only say, 1. that there is what seems to us an indication of such a transition; and 2. that it was not his habit to mark, like a modern logician, the different topics of his discourse, especially when, as in this case, they were, to his mind, only different phases of the same thought or illustrations of the same principle. To his wonderful intuitive perceptions, the particular included the universal. Particular facts were held up as illustrations of general principles, and facts which we from our superficial habits of thought regard as wholly distinct were grouped together by him, because the same underlying principle reaches through them all and makes them parts of the same series. is only by going down to this underlying thought that we can learn the close logical connection by which the different parts of his discourses are bound together. Watch, therefore] ask why those who were so far distant from the last day were exhorted to watchfulness on that ground. I answer, 1. The remoteness of the event had not been indicated to them. 2. Those who are alive at any particular time represent those who will be alive at the end of the world. 3. The principle of the divine judgments, and of the uncertainty of the hour

It

42.

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