the day of judgment, or to any other very remote event, but to the destruction of Jerufalem, which did in reality happen before that generation had paffed away.

"But of that day and hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only;" that is, al though the time when Jerufalem is to be destroyed, is, as I have told you, fixed generally to this generation, yet the precife day and hour of that event is not known either to men or angels, but to God only. This he speaks in his human nature, and in his prophetic capacity. This point was not made known to him by the spirit, nor was he commiffioned to reveal it.

It is fuppofed by feveral learned commentators, that the words, that day and that hour, refer to the day of judgment, which is immediately alluded to in the preceding verfe, heaven and earth fhall pass away. This conjecture is an ingenious one, and may be true; but if it be, this verse should be inclosed in a parenthesis, because what follows most certainly relates to the deftruction of Jerufalem, (to which St. Luke in the seventeenth chapter exprefsly confines it*) and cannot, without great violence to the words, be applied to the final advent of Chrift. "As the days of Noe were, fo fhall alfo the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; fo fhall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then fhall two be in the field; the one fhall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one fhall be taken, and the other left." That is, when the day of defolation fhall come upon the city and temple of Jerufalem, the inhabitants will be as thoughtless and unconcerned, and as unprepared for it, as the antediluvians were for the flood in the days of Noah. But as fome (more particularly the Chriftians) will be more watchful, and in a better state of mind than others, the providence of God will make a distinction between his faithful and his

• Luke, xvii. 26, 27, 35, 36.

difobedient fervants, and will protect and preferve the for mer, but leave the latter to be taken or destroyed by their enemies; although they may both be in the same situation of life, may be engaged in the fame occupations, and may appear to the world to be in every respect in fimilar circumAtances.

Here ends the prophetical part of our Lord's discourse; what follows is altogether exhortatory. It may be called the moral of the prophecy, and the practical application of it not only to his immediate hearers, but to his difciples in all future ages; for this concluding admonition most certainly alludes no lefs to the final judgment than to the deftruction of Jerufalem, and applies with at least equal force to both. Indeed the prophecy itself, although in its primary and stricteft fense it relates throughout to the deftruction of the temple, city, and government of Jerufalem, yet, as I have before observed may be confidered, and was probably intended by Jefus, as a type and an emblem of the diffolution of the world itself, to which the total fubverfion of a great city and a whole nation bears fome refemblance. But with refpect to the conclufion, there can be no doubt of its being intended to call our attention to the laft folemn day of account; and with a view of its producing this effect, I fhall now press it upon your minds in the very words of our Lord, without any comment, for it is too clear to require any explanation, and too impreffive to require any additional enforcement. "Watch ye therefore, for ye know not at what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have fuffered his houfe to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready; for in fuch an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. Who then is a faithful and a wife fervant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due feafon? Bleffed is that fervant, whom his Lord when he cometh fhall find fo doing. Verily I fay unto you, that he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil fervant fhall fay in his heart, my

Lord delayeth his coming; and begin to fmite his fellowfervants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the Lord of that fervant fhall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him afunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites; there fhall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

་་ན་་

LECTURE XX.

MATTHEW xxiv.-xxv.

IN my

my last Lecture I explained to you that remarkable prophecy refpecting the deftruction of Jerufalem, which is contained in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew; and by a reference to the hiftorians who record or mention that event, I proved to you the complete and exact accomplishment of that wonderful prediction in all its parts. And this, in a common cafe, I fhould have thought fully fufficient for your fatisfaction. But this prophecy stands fo eminently diftinguished by its fingular importance, and the great variety of matter which it embraces, and it affords fo decifive, fo irrefiftible a proof of the divine authority of our religion, that it appears to me to be well worthy of a little more attention and confideration. I fhall therefore, before I proceed to the next chapter, make fuch further remarks upon it, as may tend to throw new light upon the subject, to fhew more diftinctly the exact correspondence of the prediction with the event, and to point out the very interefting conclufions that may be drawn from it.

And first I would obferve, that, in fome inftances, the providence of God feems evidently to have interpofed in order to bring about feveral of the events, which Jefus here alludes to or predicts. Thus, in the twelfth year of Nero Ceftius Gallus, the prefident of Syria, came against Jerufalem with a powerful army; and, as Jofephus affures us, he might, had he affaulted the city, eatily have taken it, and thereby have put an end to the war*. But without any apparent reason, and contrary to all expectation, he fuddenly raised the fiege, and departed. and fome other very incidental delays, which took place before Vefpafian befieged the city, and Titus furrounded it with a wall, gave the Chriftians within an opportunity

* De Bell. Jud. 1. 2. c. 19.

This,

of following our Lord's advice, and of escaping to the mountains, which afterwards it would have been impoffi ble for them to do.

In the fame manner the besieged inhabitants themselves helped to fulfil another of our Saviour's predictions, that thofe days fhould be fhortened; for they burnt their own provifions, which would have been fufficient for many years, and fatally deserted their strongest holds, where they never could have been taken by force, the fortifications of the city being confidered as impregnable. Titus was so sensi ble of this, that he himself afcribed his fuccefs to God. "We have fought, faid he to his friends, with God on our fide; and it is God who hath dragged the Jews out of their strong holds; for what could the hands of men and machines do against fuch towers as these*?”

In the next place, it is worthy of remark, that at the time when our Lord delivered this prophecy, there was not the flightest probability of the Romans invading Judæa, much lefs of their besieging the city of Jerufalem, of their furrounding it with a wall, of their taking it by storm, and of their destroying the temple fo entirely, as not to leave one stone upon another. The Jews were then at perfect peace with the Romans. The latter could have no motives of intereft or of policy to invade, deftroy, and depopulate a country, which was already fubject to them, and from which they reaped many advantages. The fortifications too of the city were (as I have before observed) so strong, that they were deemed invincible by any human force, and it was not the custom of the Romans to demolish and raife the very foundations of the towns they took, and exterminate the inhabitants, but rather to preferve them as monuments of their victories and their triumphs.

It could not therefore be from mere human fagacity and forefight that our Saviour foretold these events; or had he even hazared a conjecture refpecting a war with the Romans, and the fiege of Jerufalem, yet he could only have done this in general terms; he could never have imagined

* Newton's Differt. on Prophecy, v. 2. p. 276.