of heaven, with power and great glory." In the dialect of prophecy, this would not necessarily imply more than the complete and extraordinary possession of earthly power by the Divine Being; but we have also the distinct declaration, not only of the apostolic writings, but of the angels at the Ascension', that, as our Lord ascended to heaven before their eyes, so he should return, visibly and bodily in his state of glory. Then shall come the consummation, the establishment of the Divine kingdom on the earth, in the midst of the rejoicing of earth and heaven. "And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever?."

The perplexities of the commentators on this prophecy have arisen chiefly from their overlooking the distinction between the Jewish and Pagan portions; and from their equally overlooking, in the brevity of the latter, the separate nature of its successive clauses; the word TOTE having the double power, of expressing the present time, and succession.

But the chief perplexity to the general reader has

arisen from the mistranslation of yevnraι, by "fulγενηται, filled" instead of "shall exist. The expression, "This generation shall not pass away, until all those things shall be fulfilled," falsifies the whole prediction; or compels the reader to conceive that our Lord came, at the time of the siege, metaphorically or obscurely, which he directly commands his disciples to disbelieve; that the convulsions of the sovereignties were contemporaneous with it, which he expressly declares were after it; and that his presence in glory was metaphorical, and is past, which is declared by the angels to be real, and by the prophets, to be among the last events of the world. But this confusion is entirely that of the translation. The original meaning of yvoμat is, "to happen, to occur." Of the nineteen meanings which it assumes, but one has a reference to fulfilment. The word is repeatedly used in the prophecy, and is as repeatedly translated in its natural meaning. It is even so far from naturally implying fulfilment, that it is used where fulfilment is expressly negatived; "All these things must be (yɛvɛolai) but the end is not yet." (7.) Other instances are, "Pray that your flight may not be (yevra) in the winter." (20.) "For there shall be great tribulation, such as has not been, nor shall be," (yεvnraι,) &c. The actual declaration to the disciples is, that the living generation should not pass away until all those things existed (had

γινομαι

commenced); and this was the fact; for they commenced within the exact period of a generation (calculated at thirty-three years). The prophecy was delivered in the thirty-third year of our Lord; and the war began in the sixty-fifth; though the fall even of the nation was not fulfilled until the war of Hadrian, (A. D. 132.) a century after. But historical events exist when they have once begun. The decline of the Roman empire existed two hundred years before it was fulfilled. The decline of the Popedom has existed since the fourteenth century. The commencement of the Jewish calamities is obviously all that the word γενηται implied; and the παντα ταυτα was a direct reference to the previous words of our Lord, repeated in the question of the disciples, and in both instances referring directly to the vengeance threatened against the Jewish nation.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

THE Deluge had extinguished the apostate Sethites, and left the world open to the undisputed possession of the little patriarchal family, which had kept its faith, and then constituted the only Church of God. The three sons of the patriarch were thenceforth to divide the world, and hold it in full supremacy; Shem the lord of the East, Japhet of the West, and Ham of the South.

Noah planted a vine, became intoxicated with its produce, and slept uncovered. Ham revealed his father's weakness, but was rebuked by the superior piety of Shem and Japhet, who reverentially covered their parent with a robe. Noah awaking, pronounced a malediction on the posterity of Ham.

The Second Cycle still retains the exactness of its parallelism to the first. The fall of Judæa had totally extinguished the original Jewish Church; the Christian, the remnant of the true Israel, had survived among the terrors of the national ruin.

But it stood alone, in a world which was a desert in every sense of religion. Yet, in less than three centuries, it was to be the ruler of that world. Struggling from the rudiments of precarious toleration up to the fulness of sacred empire, Christianity was at length the supreme religion of the Roman world. The "kingdom" had "come" in "power." Yet, strictly corresponding to the Divine announcement, a kingdom of spiritual sovereignty; a throne, not according to this world, yet possessing a larger territory, and, in all the purer senses of power, exercising a higher dominion, than had ever been given to sword or sceptre. The world never before or since exhibited so magnificent a provision for spreading knowledge and virtue through mankind.

Adopting the forms of the Roman empire, which, in the time of Constantine, was divided into thirteen vast Provinces, or civil" Dioceses," each ruled by an Exarch, or Prefect; the empire of the Church was divided into Provinces ', Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Cæsarea, Ephesus, Rome, Thessalonica, Milan, Carthage, to which Jerusalem and Justiniana were subse

quently added. The extent of territory thus placed under the several Ecclesiastical rulers,

1 The name of Patriarch is not mentioned before the Council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451; but the authority subsisted from the time of Constantine.