In the answer which our Lord gives, verse 24-30, to the question, whether there were few that should be saved from the woes he

is above double what the learned and liberal minded Prelate takes it to be. For since, in the cases of new inclosures, the smallest proportion of land allotted to the Clergy, by the Legislature, in lieu of tythes, is one seventh, the value of the tithes of the whole kingdom must be equal to, at least, one seventh of the land. Now, from the calculations of Sir John Sinclair, and other the most able estimators, it appears, that the annual rental of the whole kingdom amounts to full sixty millions; but as houses, except in the city of London, are not subject to any kind of tithe, supposing the rental of all the rest of the houses to be equal to that of the land, the titheable property will then amount to thirty millions yearly, the seventh part of which is rather more than four millions and a quarter. A sum which, whenever the time arrives when our Rulers, thinking it right to prove themselves the impartially equitable, common parents of the whole national family, by favouring the tenets and opinions of no one sect or party above the rest, instead of vainly attempting to controul and regulate the minds of their subjects, in matters concerning only God, and their own consciences, shall content themselves with restraining and regulating their overt actions and civil conduct, by the vigorous and equal execution of wise and wholesome laws, and leave every man, like the various sects of dissenters of the present day, to chuse his own mode of worshipping the Deity, and remunerating his own religious instructor, will be sufficient, by selling the tithes to the several proprietors of land, at only twenty-five years' purchase, and the estates to the highest bidder, greatly to reduce the present immense national debt, and thereby exonerate the people of between three and four millions of taxes. In the fortunate, affluent circumstances of this nation, should Administration have wisdom, and equity, and true christian piety enough, to adopt such a plan of religious reformation, without waiting till it is forced upon them, by the tumultuous, violent paroxysm of some convulsion of the state, it might be quietly effected, in the course of a few years, without the smallest injury to any one individual, by a gradual abolition of the present ecclesiastical establishment, and a proportional diminution of the public burthens, on the voidance of every benefice, either by the death or voluntary resignation of the several incumbents.

denounced against the faithless and disobedient, by being admitted members of the kingdom of God, that is of the society of true and faithful Christians? he advises his hearers to endeavour to enter into that kingdom through the lowly, narrow entrance of the persecutions, difficulties, and discouragements which awaited them, for that great numbers would seek to obtain the name of Christians by very different means, but that though they should call themselves his disciples, and plead that his Gospel had been preached amongst them, he would reject them as strangers to his religion, because they had been workers of iniquity: yet that the members of his Church and faithful subjects of God's earthly kingdom should be composed of people of the different nations from every quarter of the globe. And, in the 28th verse, he seems to predict, that at the prophetic period, denominated Christ's coming, to destroy the opposers of his Gospel and to establish his promised kingdom over the earth, not only those faithful Christians who have suffered persecutions and violent deaths, for his sake, shall miraculously be restored to life again before the rest of the dead, as the prophets Paul and John assure us, but that the

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three great Patriarchs also, and all the distinguished Jewish prophets, will partake of the same happy, glorious pre-eminence. To this honourable, happy event the Angel seems also to allude, when, at the close of the prophetic visions vouchsafed to Daniel, he says to the Prophet, “But go thou thy way till the end be:

for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the "end of the days." But the force of the testimony of these, like that of all other unaccomplished prophecies, cannot be felt before the time of their actual completion shall arrive.

In the conclusion of this thirteenth chapter, our blessed Saviour, replying to some who advised him to depart out of Galilee for fear of Herod, assures them, that he should securely continue working miracles in that district for three days longer, for that his death could be accomplished only at Jerusafem; and apostrophizing the inhabitants of that metropolis, in a pathetic commiseration of the desolation so soon to come upon them in consequence of their obstinate incredulity and rejection of his mission, he adds, that, nevertheless, they should not see him till they should say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. When he predicted this Circumstanee, he was at a considerable dis

tance from Jerusalem, attended only by the Apostles and a few other disciples who followed him from Galilee; but as he approached the metropolis, we may easily conceive what crowds of its inhabitants the fame of such an extraordinary prophet would draw forth, to see him and his wonderful works, and to hear his instructions; and upon his entry into the eity, Luke informs us*, that this whole multitude burst forth into a spontaneous completion of this prediction, exclaiming, Blessed is the king that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven and glory in the highest. To those who had heard his words in Galilee, this event must have afforded a convincing proof of the divine gift of prophecy with which their master was endowed from heaven: but since this history was penned, long after that event had come to pass, it can, in itself, be of no important use to us, except to shew that the Apostles and first disciples of Jesus Christ, having received proofs of his heavenly mission, by means of completed prophecy-as well as miracles, had every requisite and possible means of being fully and rationally convinced of the truth and divine authority of that Gospel, which they preached after his

Chap. xix. 38.

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death, and for which they willingly sacrificed all their interests in the present world.

V. WE have seen that in the 11th chapter, our Lord predicted that the total destruction of Jerusalem would happen within forty years from his preaching the Gospel to the Jews; and in the 17th chapter, from verse 22 to the end, he foretells, that its destruction, which is here described as one instance of his coming with power to establish his promised kingdom, by the signal, providential extirpation of the first inveterate enemies and opposers of his religion should be sudden and unexpected, like the flash of lightning that frequently begins a widely destroying storm; and when the people should as little think of the fatal danger impending over them, as the men of Noah's age thought of being overwhelmed by the deluge, or the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, of perishing by sulphureous showers of fire. Accordingly, Josephus informs us, that such a calamity was so little expected at the time when it befel them, that Jerusalem was then filled with multitudes who were come from every quarter to celebrate the Passover; and that Titus himself, far from intending to destroy