consider they might have been worse. It is bad to be forced to flee, but it would have been worse if it had been in the winter.

It is also foretold, that throughout all the country of the Jews, there should be such destruction and desolation made, as could not be paralleled in any history (ver. 19,)-In those days shall be affliction such as was not from the beginning of time; that is, of the creation which God created, for time and the creation are of equal date, unto this day, neither shall be to the end of time; such a complication of miseries, and of such continuance. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans was very terrible, but this exceeded it. It threatened a universal slaughter of all the people of the Jews. So barbarously did they devour one another, and the Romans devour them all, that, if their wars had continued a little longer, no flesh could have been saved, not one Jew could have been left alive. But in the midst of wrath God remembered mercy,-He shortened the days; he let fall his controversy before he had made a full end. As a Church and nation, the ruin was complete; but many particular persons had their lives given them for a prey, by the storm's subsiding when it did. It was for the elect's sake that those days were shortened; many among them fared the better for the sake of few among them that believed in Christ, and were faithful to him. There was a promise that a remnant should be saved (Isa. x. 22), and that God would not, for his servants' sakes, destroy them all (Isa. lxv. 8); and these promises must be fulfilled. God's own elect cry day and night to him, and their prayers must be answered. Luke xviii. 7.

Directions are given to the disciples with reference to this destruction. They must shift for the safety of their lives,-" When you see the country invaded and the city invested, flatter not yourselves with the thoughts that the enemy will retire, or that you may be able to make your part good with them; but, without farther deliberation or delay, let them that are in Judea flee to the mountains. Ver. 14. Meddle not with the strife that belongs not to you; let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth, but do you go out of the ship when you see it sinking, that you die not the death of the uncircumcised in heart."

They must provide for the safety of their souls," Seducers will be busy at that time; for they love to fish in troubled waters; and, therefore, you must double your guard. Then, if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ; or, Lo, he is there, you know he is in heaven, and will come again at the end of time, to judge the world, and therefore believe them not. Having received Christ, be not drawn into the snares of any antichrist; for false Christs and false prophets shall arise.” Ver. 22. When the gospel kingdom was in the setting up, Satan mustered all his force to oppose it, and made use of all his wiles; and God permitted it, for the trial of the sincerity of some, the discovery of the hypocrisy of others, and the confusion of those who rejected Christ when he was offered to them. False Christs shall rise, and false prophets that shall preach them up; or such as, though they pretend not to be Christs, set up for prophets, and undertake to foretell things to come, and they shall show signs and lying wonders. So early did the mystery of iniquity begin to work. 2 Thess. ii. 7. They shall seduce, if it were possible, the very elect. So plausible shall their pretences be, and so industrious shall they be to impose upon people, that they shall draw away many that were forward and zealous professors of religion-many that were very likely to have persevered; for nothing will be effectual to secure men but that foundation of God which stands immoveably sure,-"The Lord knoweth them that are his," who shall be preserved when the faith of some is overthrown. 2 Tim. ii. 18, 19. They shall seduce, if it were possible, the very elect; but it is not possible to seduce them; the election shall obtain, whoever are blinded. Rom. xi. 7. But, in consideration hereof, let the disciples be cautious whom they give credit to (ver. 23),— But take ye heed. Christ knew that they were of the elect, who could not possibly be seduced, and yet he said to them, Take heed. An assurance of persevering, and cautions against apostasy, will very well consist with each other. Though Christ said to them, Take heed, it doth not therefore follow that their perseverance was doubtful, for they were kept by the power of God; and though their perseverance was secured, yet it doth not therefore follow that this caution was needless, because they must be kept in the use of proper means. God will keep them, but they must keep themselves. "I have foretold you all things; have foretold you of this danger, that, being forewarned, you may be fore-armed; I have foretold all things which you need to have foretold to you, and therefore take heed of hearkening to such as pretend to be prophets, and to foretell more than I have foretold." The sufficiency of the Scripture is a good argument against listening to such as pretend to inspiration.

The following account of the fulfilment of our Lord's predictions regarding the destruction of Jerusalem, is extracted from Dr Keith's excellent and well known work, "Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Religion, derived from the Literal Fulfilment of Prophecy :"

"The different prophecies of Christ respecting Jerusalem may be condensed into a single view. "And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple; and his disciples came to him, for to

shew him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you; for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And the time draws near; and ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, or commotions: these things must first come to pass, but the end is not yet. Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful sights; and great signs shall there be from heaven. All these things are the beginnings of sorrows. And many shall be offended. Ye shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren, and kinsfolk and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death, and ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. But, before all these things, they shall lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake. But there shall not a hair of your head perish. And many false prophets will arise, and will deceive many; and, because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. And the gospel must first be published among all nations, and then shall the end come. When ye, therefore, shall see Jerusalem encompassed with armies, and the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place, and where it ought not, then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let him which is in the midst of it depart out. Let him which is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein to take any thing out of his house. Neither let him that is in the field turn back again for to take up his garment, for these are the days of vengeance. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days: for there will be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people; and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive into all nations. There shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. This generation shall not pass away till all these things be done.' Matt. xxiv., Mark xiii., Luke xxi.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees! fill ye up the measure of your fathers. Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill, and crucify, and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city. All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together. even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.' Matt. xxiii. 29, 32, 34, 36–39.

"When he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.' Luke xix. 41–44.

"These prophecies repel the charge of ambiguity. They are equally copious and clear. History attests the truth of each and all of them; and a recapitulation of them forms an enumeration of the facts. False Christs appeared. Simon Magus boasted that he was some great one. Dositheus,

At

the Samaritan, pretended that he was the Lawgiver prophesied of by Moses. Theudas, promising the performance of a miracle, persuaded a great multitude to follow him to Jordan, and deceived many. The country was filled with impostors and deceivers, who induced the people to follow them into the wilderness; their credulity became the punishment of their previous scepticism; and, in one instance, the tumult was so great, that the soldiers took two hundred prisoners, and slew twice that number. There were wars and rumours of wars; nation rose against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. The Jews resisted the erection of the statue of Caligula in the temple; and such was the dread of Roman resentment, that the fields remained uncultivated. Cæsarea, the Jews and the Syrians contended for the mastery of the city. Twenty thousand of the former were put to death, and the rest were expelled. Every city in Syria was then divided into two armies, and multitudes were slaughtered. Alexandria and Damascus presented a similar scene of bloodshed. About fifty thousand of the Jews fell in the former, and ten thousand in the latter. The Jewish nation rebelled against the Romans; Italy was convulsed with contentions for the empire; and, as a proof of the troublous and warlike character of the period, within the brief space of two years, four emperors-Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius-suffered death.

There were

famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places. In the reign of Claudius Caesar there were different famines. They continued to be severe for several years throughout the land of Judea. Pestilence succeeded them. In the same reign there were earthquakes at Rome, at Apamea, and at Crete. In that of Nero there was an earthquake at Campania, and another in which Laodicea, Hieropolis, and Colosse, were overthrown; and others are recorded to have happened in various places, before the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. The constitution of nature was confounded for the destruction of men, and one might easily conjecture that no common calamities were portended.' And there were fearful sights and signs from heaven. Tacitus and Josephus agree in relating and in describing events so surprising and supernatural, that their narrative perfectly accords with the previous prediction. And the fact cannot be disputed, that, whatever these sights were, the minds of men were impressed with the idea that they were indeed signs from heaven: and even this could never have been foreseen by man. There is surely something at least unaccountable in their prediction, and in their relation by historians, unprejudiced and unfriendly to the cause which their testimony supports. The disciples of Jesus were persecuted, imprisoned, afflicted, and hated of all nations, for his name's sake, and many of them were put to death. Peter, Simon, and Jude were crucified; Paul was beheaded; Matthew, Thomas, James, Matthias, Mark, and Luke were put to death in different countries, and in various manners. There was a war against the very name. They were accused of hatred to the human race. The prejudices and the interests of the supporters of paganism were everywhere against them; and, in one miserable instance, Nero, to screen himself from the guilt of being the incendiary of his capital, accused the innocent but hated Christians of that atrocious deed, and inflicted upon them the most excruciating tortures. He made their sufferings a spectacle and a sport to the Romans. To compensate for his disappointment in not trampling on the ashes of Rome, as well as to cloak his iniquity, the monster (for the man and the monarch were both laid aside) gratified his savage lust of cruelty, by the substitution of one feast for another; he selected the Christians for his victims, from the general odium under which they lay; and their name became the warrant for that selection, and sufficed to sanction the infliction of unheard-of barbarities. Many shall be offended, and shall betray one another; and the love of many shall wax cold. The apostle of the Gentiles often complained of false brethren, that many turned away from him, and that he stood alone, forsaken by all, when he first appeared before Nero. And Tacitus testifies that very many were convicted, on the evidence of others who had previously been accused. But the gospel was published throughout the world, in defiance of all peril and persecution. In the age of the apostles, epistles were addressed to Christians at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, Thessalonica, and in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. After Christ delivered this prophecy, he was in a little time forsaken by all his disciples, and put to death as a criminal. At their first assembly, they were a little flock-the number of the names together were about a hundred and twenty; and, unpromising as the prospect was, a few fishermen of Galilee, aided afterwards by a tent-maker of Tarsus, circumscribed not their labours, in the preaching of the gospel, by the boundaries of the Roman empire. Could the reception or the fate of Christ himself have warranted such a conclusion? Did ever any cause triumph by such means? or was ever any cause opposed like his? And could any thing be more unlikely to have been clearly foreseen and positively affirmed? All these events preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, and then the end of that city was at hand. The signs of its approaching ruin are given as a warning to depart from it. Jerusalem was encompassed with armies. The Roman armies, with their idolatrous ensigns, which were an abomination to the Jews, surrounded it; but, instead of being a signal for flight, this would naturally have implied the impossibility of escape, and the warning would have been in vain. Yet the words of Jesus did not deceive his disciples. Cestius Gallus, the Roman general, besieged Jerusalem; but immediately after, contrary to all human probability, an interval was given for escape. He suddenly and causelessly retreated, though some of the chief men of the city had offered to open to him the gates. Josephus acknowledges that the utmost consternation prevailed among the besieged, and that the city would infallibly have been taken. And he attributes it to the just vengeance of God that the city and the sanctuary were not then taken, and the war terminated at once. He relates, also, how many of the most illustrious inhabitants departed from the city, as from a sinking vessel; and how, upon the approach of Vespasian afterwards, multitudes fled from Jericho into the mountainous country. Thither, and to the city of Pella, fled all the disciples of Jesus, as credible historians assert. And, amidst all the succeeding calamities, not a hair of their heads did perish.

"There shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor shall ever be. There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. These are the days of vengeance. Such are some of the words of Jesus, relative to the destruction of Jerusalem; and all the previous prophecies regarding it were of the same sad import. The

particulars of the siege are all related by Josephus, and form a detail of miseries that admit not of exaggeration; and which he repeatedly declares, in terms that entirely accord with the language of prophecy, are altogether unequalled in the history of the world.-No general description can give a just idea of calamities the most terrible that ever nation suffered. The Jews had assembled in their city from all the surrounding country, to keep the feast of unleavened bread. It was crowded with inhabitants when they were all imprisoned within its walls. The passover, which was commemorative of their first great deliverance, had collected them for their last signal destruction. Before any external enemy appeared, the fiercest dissensions prevailed; the blood of thousands was shed by their brethren; they destroyed and burned, in their frenzy, their common provisions for the siege; they were destitute of any regular government, and divided into three factions. On the extirpation of one of these, each of the others contended for the mastery. The most ferocious and frantic the robbers or zealots, as they were indiscriminately called-prevailed at last. They entered the temple, under the pretence of offering sacrifices, and carried concealed weapons for the purpos of assassination. They slew the priests at the very altar; and their blood, instead of that of the victims for sacrifice, flowed around it. They afterwards rejected all terms of peace with the enemy; none was suffered to escape from the city; every house was entered, every article of subsistence was pillaged, and the most wanton barbarities were committed. Nothing could restrain their fury. Wherever there was the appearance or scent of food, the human bloodhounds tracked it out; and though a general famine raged around, though they were trampling on the dead, and though the habitations of the living were converted into charnel-houses, nothing could intimidate, or appal, or satisfy, or shock them, till Mary, the daughter of Eleazar, a lady once rich and noble, displayed to them and offered them all her remaining food, the scent of which had attracted them in their search-the bitterest morsel that ever mother or mortal tasted-the remnant of her half-eaten suckling! Sixty thousand Roman soldiers unremittingly besieged them; they encompassed Jeru salem with a wall, and hemmed them in on every side; they brought down their high and fenced walls to the ground; they slaughtered the slaughterers; they spared not the people; they burned the temple, in defiance of the commands, the threats, and the resistance of the general. With it the last hope of all the Jews was extinguished. They raised, at the sight, an universal but an expiring cry of sorrow and despair. Ten thousand were there slain, and six thousand victims were enveloped in its blaze. The whole city, full of the famished, dying, and of the murdered dead, presented no picture but that of despair, no scene but that of horror. The aqueducts and the city sewers were crowded, as the last refuge of the hopeless. Two thousand were found dead there, and many were dragged from thence and slain. The Roman soldiers put all indiscriminately to death, and ceased not till they became faint, and weary, and overpowered with the work of destruction. But they only sheathed the sword to light the torch. They set fire to the city in various places. The flames spread everywhere, and were checked but for a moment by the red streamlets in every street. Jerusalem became heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. Within the circuit of eight miles, in the space of five months-foes and famine, pillage and pestilence within -a triple wall around, and besieged every moment from without-eleven hundred thousand human beings perished, though the tale of each of them was a tragedy. Was there ever so concentrated a mass of misery? Could any prophecy be more faithfully and awfully fulfilled? The prospect of his own crucifixion, when Jesus was on his way to Calvary, was not more clearly before him, and seemed to affect him less, than the fate of Jerusalem. How full of tenderness, and fraught with truth, was the sympathetic response of the condoling sufferer, to the wailings and lamentations of the women who followed him, when he turned unto them and beheld the city, which some of them might yet see wrapt in flames and drenched in blood, and said, 'Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?' No impostor ever betrayed such feelings as a man, nor predicted events so unlikely, astonishing, and true, as an attestation of a divine commission. Jesus revealed the very judgments of God; for such the instrument by whom it was accomplished interpreted the capture and destruction of Jerusalem, acknowledging that his own power would otherwise have been ineffectual. When eulogized for the victory, Titus disclaimed the praise, affirming that he was only the instrument of executing the sentence of the Divine justice. And their own historian asserts, in conformity with every declaration of Scripture upon the subject, that the iniquities of the Jews were as unparalleled as their punishment.

"All these prophecies, of which we have been reviewing the accomplishment, were delivered in a time of perfect peace-when the Jews retained their own laws, and enjoyed the protection, as they

were subject to the authority of the Roman empire, then in the zenith of its power. The wonder excited in the minds of his disciples at the strength and stability of the temple, drew forth from Jesus the announcement of its speedy and utter ruin. He foretold the appearance of false Christs and pretended prophets,-the wars and rumours of wars,-the famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, and fearful sights that were to ensue, the persecution of his disciples, the apostasy of many, -the propagation of the gospel,—the sign that should warn his disciples to flee from approaching ruin, the encompassing and enclosing of Jerusalem,-the grievous affliction of the tender sex,the unequalled miseries of all,-the entire destruction of the city,-the shortening of their sufferings, that still some might be saved; and that all this dread crowd of events, which might well have occupied the progress of ages, was to pass away within the limits of a single generation. None but He who discerns futurity could have foretold and described all these things; and their complete and literal fulfilment shows them to be indubitably the revelation of God.

"But the prophecies also mark minuter facts, if possible more unlikely to have happened. Jerusalem was to be ploughed over as a field-to be laid even with the ground; of the temple one stone was not to be left upon another; the Jews were to be few in number; to be led captive into all nations; to be sold for slaves, and none would buy them. And each of these predictions was strictly verified. Titus commanded the whole city and temple to be razed from the foundation. The soldiers were not then disobedient to their general. Avarice combined with duty and resentment; the altar, the temple, the walls, and the city, were overthrown from the base, in search of the treasures which the Jews, beset on every hand by plunderers, had concealed and buried during the siege. Three towers and the remnant of a wall alone stood, the monument and memorial of Jerusalem; and the city was afterwards ploughed over by Terentius Rufus. In the siege, and the previous and subsequent destruction of the cities and villages of Judea, according to the specified enumeration of Josephus, about one million three hundred thousand suffered death. Ninety-seven thousand were led into captivity. They were sold for slaves, and were so despised and disesteemed, that many remained unpurchased. And their conquerors were so prodigal of their lives, that, in honour of the birth-day of Domitian, two thousand five hundred of them were placed, in savage sport, to contend with wild beasts, and otherwise to be put to death.

"But the miseries of their race were not then at a close. There was a curse on the land, that hath scathed it-a judgment on the people, that hath scattered them throughout the world. The prophecies are as clear as the facts are visible."

24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, 25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. 26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. 27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

Dan. vii. 10; Zeph. i. 15; Matt. xxiv. 29; Luke xxi. 25.

Dan. vii. 13, 14; Matt. xvi. 27, xxiv. 30; Chap. xiv. 62; Acts i. 11; 1 Thess. iv. 16; 2 Thess. i. 7, 10; Rev. i. 7.

These verses seem to point at Christ's second coming, to judge the world; the disciples, in their question, had confounded the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world (Matt. xiv. 3), which was built upon a mistake, as if the temple must needs stand as long as the world stands ; this mistake Christ rectifies, and shows that the end of the world in those days those other days you inquire about, the day of Christ's coming, and the day of judgment, shall be after that tribulation, and not coincident with it. Let those who live to see the Jewish nation destroyed, take heed of thinking that, because the Son of man doth not visibly come in the clouds then, he will never so come; no, he will come after that. And here he foretells,

The final dissolution of the present frame and fabric of the world; even of that part of it which seems least liable to change the upper part, the purer and more refined part. The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall no more give her light; for they shall be quite outshone by the glory of the Son of man. Isa. xxiv. 23. The stars of heaven, that from the beginning had kept their place and regular motion, shall fall as leaves in autumn; and the powers that are in heaven, the heavenly bodies, the fixed stars, shall be shaken.

The visible appearance of the Lord Jesus, to whom the judgment of that day shall be committed (ver. 26),— Then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds. Probably he will come over that very place where he sat when he said this; for the clouds are in the lower region of the air Y y