life of faith in the Son of God! He is the man, and he

only, who is ready for the great things coming on the earth, and the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. The kingdom to which he belongs, is the only kingdom which shall never be destroyed. The King whom he serves, is the only King whose dominion shall never be taken away. (Dan. ii. 44. vii. 14.)

NOTES. LUKE XXI 20-24.

20.-[When ye shall see, &c.] From this verse down to the end of the 24th, our Lord's prophecy is entirely confined to the last days of Jerusalem, and the duties of His disciples during that eventful period. Here at all events there is no reference to His second advent, and the last siege of Jerusalem, after its future restoration. The siege by Titus and destruction by the Romans are exclusively the subject under our eyes.

The

[Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know.] The following historical facts are well worthy of notice. They show in a remarkable manner how the words of our Lord in this verse were accomplished. It appears that three years before the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, the Roman army under Cestius Gallus made a sudden attack upon Jerusalem, but most unaccountably and without any apparent reason, withdrew again, although the city might have been taken with ease. consequence of this attack was that a large number of the inhabitants of Jerusalem took alarm, and withdrew from the city as soon as the Roman army had retired. To use the words of Josephus, they swam away, as from a ship about to sink." Among those who escaped were the Christians, some of them retiring to Pella, and some to Mount Libanus. The result of this was, that when the last great war, under Vespasian and Titus, broke out shortly afterwards, the Christians almost entirely escaped its desolation.

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It seems a high probability that the Christians remembered the very words of our Lord which we are now considering, and that the remembrance of them was the preservation of their lives. They saw in the advance of the Roman army under Cestius Gallus the predicted sign of “desolation drawing nigh." They at once acted on the advice of their master, and so escaped the miseries of the final siege.

21.-Flee to the mountains, &c.] Major remarks, "These were the mountains to the north east of Jerusalem, towards the

source of the Jordan, which was in the territories of Agrippa. He continued faithful to the Romans; and hence the Christians avoided the destruction which overspread Judæa."

22.-[Days of vengeance...things written fulfilled.] The "vengeance" spoken of here appears to me to be the righteous retribution of God on the Jewish nation, for all their sins against Him, from the time when they first entered Canaan. I cannot confine it to vengeance" for the sins of the nation during the last few hundred years of their existence after the Babylonish captivity. The words of our Lord in Matt. xxiii. 35, 36, appear to confirm this view.

The "things written" appear to me to include all the heavy judgments foretold in the Old Testament as coming on the Jews, and to begin with the 26th chap. of Leviticus.

23.-[Woe...them with child, give suck, &c.] The miseries of women in the siege of Jerusalem are specially foretold in Deut. xxviii. 56.]

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[In the land.] Here, as in many other places in the Gospels, the land" seems specially to mean the land of Palestine. 24.-Fall by edge of sword, &c.] Josephus records that there perished in the siege of Jerusalem, by sword and by famine, no less than eleven hundred thousand Jews.

[Led away captives, &c.] Josephus records that in the course of the war ninety-seven thousand Jews were made captives. Most of them were sent as slaves into Egypt, or dispersed over the provinces of the Roman Empire, to be cast to the wild beasts in the amphitheatres.

[Jerusalem trodden down of the Gentiles.] This expression means that the city of Jerusalem shall be possessed by Gentile nations, and cruelly oppressed as a captive city, until the Jews shall be restored to their own land. How literally and exactly these words have been fulfilled all readers of history know. In spite of all the efforts of the crusaders, Jerusalem has almost always been a city trampled under foot and cruelly oppressed, by Romans, Greeks, Saracens, and Turks, from the time of Titus down to the present day.

[Until...times of...Gentiles be fulfilled.] This expression is variously interpreted.

1. Some, with Bishop Pearce, put a vague general meaning on it, and say it signifies "till the Gentiles have done all which God intended them to do."

2. Some think, with Hammond, that it refers entirely to something already past, and that it was accomplished after the days of Adrian, when a church composed of Gentiles, Christians,

and converted Jews was set up at Jerusalem, and flourished for a short time.

3. Some think, with Whitby and Newcome, that it refers entirely to things to come, and that the time of the Gentiles will be fulfilled when they are all fully converted to Christianity.

4. The true view I believe to be this. The "times of the Gentiles" I regard as the period between the first and second advents of Christ, during which the Gentile nations have a day of visitation and enjoy the privileges of the Gospel.-These times will come to an end at last, as the old Jewish dispensation did, because of the hardness and unbelief of the Gentile churches. They too, because they continue not in God's goodness, will be cut off. And when their time of visitation comes to an end, and they have been found as faithless and hardened as the Jews, then at last will the Jews be converted, and Jerusalem restored to its rightful possessors.

Our own times, be it remembered, are the "times of the Gentiles." They are times which seem rapidly drawing to an end. When they do end, the conversion of the Jews and the restoration of Jerusalem will take place.

LUKE XXI. 25–33.

25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;

26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. 27 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption

draweth nigh.

29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; 30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.

31 So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.

32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.

33 Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away.

The

THE subject of this portion of our Lord's great prophecy is His own second coming to judge the world. strong expressions of the passage appear inapplicable to any event less important than this. To confine the words before us, to the taking of Jerusalem by the Romans, is an unnatural straining of Scripture language.

We see, firstly, in this passage, how terrible will be the circumstances accompanying the second advent of Christ. Our Lord tells us that "there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth : for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud."

This is a singularly awful picture. It may not be easy perhaps to attach a precise meaning to every part of it. One thing however, is abundantly plain. The second coming of Christ will be attended by everything which can make it alarming to the senses and heart of man. If the giving of the law at Sinai was so terrible that even Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake," the return of Christ when He comes to earth in power and great glory shall be much more terrible.-If the hardy Roman soldiers "became as dead men," when an angel rolled the stone away and Christ rose again, how much greater will the terror be when Christ shall return to judge the world. No wonder that St. Paul said, “Knowing the terrors of the Lord we persuade men." (Heb. xii. 21. Matt. xxviii. 4. 2 Cor. v. 11.)

What

The thoughtless and impenitent man may well tremble when he hears of this second advent of Christ. will he do when worldly business is suddenly stopped and the precious things of the world are made worthless ?— What will he do when the graves on every side are opening, and the trumpet is summoning men to judgment ?What will he do when that same Jesus whose Gospel he

has so shamefully neglected shall appear in the clouds of heaven, and put down every enemy under His feet ?— Surely he will call on the rocks to fall on him and on the hills to cover him. (Hosea x. 8.) But he will call in vain for help, if he has never called on Christ before. Happy will they be in that day who have fled betimes from the wrath to come, and been washed in the blood of the Lamb!

We see, secondly, in this passage, how complete will be the security of true Christians at the second advent of Christ. We read that our Lord said to His disciples, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."

However terrible the signs of Christ's second coming may be to the impenitent, they need not strike terror into the heart of the true believer. They ought rather to fill him with joy. They ought to remind him that his complete deliverance from sin, the world, and the devil, is close at hand, and that he shall soon bid an eternal farewell to sickness, sorrow, death, and temptation. The very day when the unconverted man shall lose everything, shall be the day when the believer shall enter on his eternal reward. The very hour when the worldly man's hopes shall perish, shall be the hour when the believer's hope shall be exchanged for joyful certainty and full possession.

The servant of God should often look forward to Christ's second advent. He will find the thought of that day a cordial to sustain him under all the trials and persecutions of this present life. "Yet a little time," let him remember, "and he that shall come will come and will not