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THUNDERIDGE BURY, near WARE, HERTS, S.W.

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I

TO VOLUME LXXXI. PART I.

Embellished with Views of THUNDERIDGE BURY, near Ware, Herts; FORD PALACE, SALMESTON GRANGE, and MINSTER CHURCH and MANOR HOUSE, Kent.

Mr. URBAN,

June 1.

with a place in your valuable Miscel any for May, p. 441, I endeavoured to prove that there was no foundation whatever for his conclusion, that the phrase of our Lord's Coming, wherever it occurs in his prediction of the Jewish war, is to be taken in its literal meaning, as denoting his coming in person, in visible pomp and glory, to the general judg ment." Permit me, Sir, to add to what I then said, that our Lord appears to have taken uncommon pains to guard against the very possibility of applying his language, to any other event than to the coming of the Messiah, by his declaration in the 34th verse Verily I say unto you--not that some, but that all these things shall come to pass in this generation. And to render this assurance as energetic and emphatic as possible, he immediately subjoins this most solemn asseveration of its truth

Mr. URBAN, Tunstall, June 5. SEND you a S. E. view of Thuney Sermons, which you honoured Nmy critique upon Bishop Horsderidge Bury, near Ware, Herts, late the seat of J. Hollingsworth, esq. (See Plate I.) This capacious and venerable mansion (originally named Tonridge Bury) is situated about a mile from Wade's Mill, near Ware; and was built about the reiga of Henry VII. though the outside of the building has from time to time been modernized, and only a small part, on the North side, retains it original form. The rooms are large. On the ground floor are two parlours 36 feet by 18, and a hall 40 feet square, embellished with an elegant mantle-piece, containing much antique ornament, with the arms, helmet, and crest of the Gardiners, long possessors of this estate; one of whom lately sold it by auction to R. Giles, esq. of Young's Bury, near this place, who has sold the mansion in lots to pull down. On removing the wainscot, some very good paintings were discovered, executed on the plaster-walls, of the achievements of Hercules, one of which has been preserved. In another part of the house was discovered a painting, not very finely executed, but remarkably fresh in its colours; the subject, Hunting a Wild Pull. Mr. Hollingsworth resided here about 28 years, and made many elegant improvements, particularly in the plantations and grounds, which are well stocked, principally with stately firs of various sorts; these together with a moat that partly surrounds the house, and the Church spire peeping above the trees, produce a pleasing and pie turesque effect, It is much to be regretted that this venerable mansion, with every requisite for the maintenance of old English Hospitality, should be destroyed ere Time had marked it with his desolating hand. Yours, &c. P. GENT. MAG. Suppl. LXXXI. PART I, A

- Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Having thus secured his meaning from being misunderstood, or misapplied to any other event, as far, I mean, as human language could secure it, Our Lord proceeds, more particularly, to answer the other question of the Disciples When shall these things be? Of that day and hour, or season, when these things shall be, for that is, most evidently, the Ellipsis to be supplied; otherwise here is a relative without an antecedent or, in plainer terms, an ap parent reference to something which had been said before, when in reality he was beginning a new subject which had no relation to it Of that day and hour knoweth no man, &c. But that no new subject is introduced, is, I think, most evident from the verse which immediately follows - But as the

the days of Noah were, which, unquestionably, were days of great temporal calamity, so shuil also the Coming of the Son of Man be; which he more fully explains in the two following verses-For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the Ark, and knew not their danger till the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the nature of the Coming of the Son of Man be; i. e. instead of a prosperous and triumphant Prince whom they expected as their Messiah, his coming, in a temporal view, would be most calamitous and destructive! In the 27th verse, Our Lord had said that, 4s the lightning cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West; so shall also the Coming of the Son of Man be. Here this Coming is explained to be, us in the days of Noah. His kingdom could only be established on the destruction of the Jewish polity. Together they could not subsist.

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With respect to Bishop Horsley's other assertion, that in most other passages of the New Testament, the phrase the Coming of Christ must be taken in its literal meaning, as denoting his coming in person, in visible pomp and glory, to the general judgment; it appears to me to be equally ill founded with that which I have already endeavoured to confute. I by no means assert that the phrase the Coming of Christ is never made use of, in this sense, in the New Testament but, as I have produced sufficient evidence that Christ himself made use of that phrase to denote the destruction of Jerusalem, it was natural, à priori, to have expected that his Apostles, in alluding to that event in their Epistles, would adopt it. I have, I think, given very probable eyidence that St. Paul, in his celebrated description of the Man of Sin, used the phrase in this sense, when he says, in the beginning of the Chapter Now concerning the Coming of Christ. Dr. Aikin, in his Review of my Treatise upon this subject, has given it as his opinion that I have placed it beyond the reach of farther controversy." And I believe I am correct when I say that you, Mr Urban, dignified it with the appellation of most profound. But not to lay any stress upon the opinions which have been given upon that per

formance, it is a remarkable fact, that though the hypothesis there espoused has been many years before the publick, it never has, that I know of, been openly controverted, except by bare assertion, and without at all entering into the merits of the subject. Again, when St. Peter says · We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ; there is, I think, sufficient evidence, from the History of the Transfiguration, to which St. Peter himself appeals, that the phrase the Coming of Christ is used by him as relating to his first coming as the Messiah, as a proof which might be fully relied on, that he and his fellow Apostles had not followed cunningly deviscd fables. Bishop Horsley had a fine opportunity of entering into a critical enquiry into the meaning of this passage, in his four Sermons upon the sure word of Prophecy but it is very remarkable that he does not appear to have taken the slightest notice of it, though it was, most evidently, the foundation of the whole of the Apostle's subsequent reasoning. I must beg leave to add, that I entertain no doubt whatever, that when the same Apostle mentions the scoffers as saying Where is the promise of his Coming? they use the phrase, in the sense of his coming as the Messiah. Their saying that all things continued as they were from the beginning of the Creation, is in my opinion a strong proof that this was the meaning of these scoffers. I alledge, as a further proof of this, St. Peter's assertion, that he and his fellow Christians looked for new Heavens and a new Earth, Jerusalem not being yet destroyed, wherein dwelleth righteousness, agreeable to the well-known language of antient prophecy. See Isaiah Ixv. 17, lxvi. 22. That St. Peter alluded to the establishment of Christianity in these words, appears to me highly probable from the three preceding verses, which Dr. Lightfoot, who is said by a very able judge (Dr. Maltby) to have thrown more light upon the language and allusions of the Sacred Volumes than almost all other Commentators whatsoever, thinks "intend nothing more than the dissolving of their Church and economy by fiery vengeance--the consumption of their state by the flame of God's indignation and the ruin of their elements

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