: are to take place and these are but the beginning of sorrows. Persecutions were to follow; the disciples were to be afflicted and killed, and hated of all nations for Christ's name. Many were to be offended and to betray one another : false prophets should arise, and deceive many, the abounding of iniquity should cause the love of many to wax cold, he that endureth to the end should alone be saved, the gospel of the kingdom should be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations ;" and then shall the end come." Such is the outline from our Lord's lips of what should occur up to the end of the age. Is there any intimation of a millennium? of a period of universal blessing? Why it seems like a studied accumulation of all that is opposite to this! Wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, persecutions, apostacies, delusions, false prophets, the gospel indeed preached universally for a witness to all nations, but iniquity abounding and love declining, so that it is only he who endureth to the end that shall be saved! Surely there is nothing that resembles a millennium here! If it should be asked, where in all this is the Lord's answer to the disciple's question as to the overthrow of the temple, we can only reply, that if there be an answer at all it must be in what he says (v. 6, 7) of wars and rumours of wars, nation rising against nation, &c. We do not say that this is the answer, or that he gives an answer to that part of their inquiry.* If there be an answer, this seems to be its only place: And it may be noted that Christ does say here, that "the end is not yet," and, "all these are the beginning of sorrows." At v. 14, we reach the end, and from v. 15, onwards, our Lord speaks of details which he had not specified in the general outline. Let us now turn to these details. We quote a long passage here, that it may be before the reader's eye, and that he may thus be the better able to appreciate its force. 66 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand :) then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains, let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house; neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! but pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sab *There is undoubtedly an answer to this question in Luke xxi; but this we hope to consider hereafter. : bath day for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." Here we pause to remark, that it cannot be of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans long ago, that our Lord speaks. He quotes from the prophet Daniel, and speaks, as Daniel had long before written, of a time of tribulation unequalled by any other. Turn to Dan. xii, 1, and you will find that this time of unequalled trouble is not when Jerusalem is destroyed and the Jews dispersed, BUT WHEN THEY ARE DELIVERED. "And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: AND AT THAT TIME THY PEOPLE SHALL BE DELIVERED, every one that shall be found written in the book." We intreat our post-millennial brethren to look fairly at this passage. Does it not speak of a time of trouble unequalled by any that has preceded it? Does it not declare that at that time Daniel's people shall be delivered, not destroyed? How then can our Lord be speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, when he says that there shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, NO NOR EVER SHALL BE! If the tribulation unequalled by any before it, or any after it, took place eighteen centuries ago when Jerusalem was destroyed, how can Daniel speak of a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, and say that at that time his people shall be delivered? Unless we make Daniel and our Lord flatly and irreconcilably contradict each other, we must allow that it is of the same unequalled tribulation that they speak, and that it did not take place at the destruction of Jerusalem, but that it is yet to come to pass, when Daniel's people the Jews, are to be delivered. Let us now proceed with our Lord's words. "Then (at this yet future time of unequalled tribulation) if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth; Behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." No need, dear readers, to go into the desert to seek him, or to the secret chambers to find him out. When he comes, "every eye shall see him." Sudden as the lightning's flash, and overwhelmingly manifest to all, as is that phenomenon, shall be the coming of the Son of man. The Lord grant to our readers to find mercy of the Lord in that day! But when is this coming of the Son of man? Does our Lord give any clue as to the time of his return? Yes, he does. He fixes neither day nor hour, but he gives us a mark, which demonstrates with something like mathematical certainty that it must be prior to the millennium. Hear his words, "Immediately after (not a thousand years or more, but immediately after) the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.' There has been but one time of tribulation spoken of by our Lord. We have seen that he declares it to be unparalleled by anything before it, or anything to succeed it. We have seen too how a comparison with Daniel demonstrates, that this time of unequalled tribulation is future not past—that it is when the Jews are delivered, not when Jerusalem was destroyed. We now see how our Lord declares that immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun is to be darkened, the moon to withold her light, the sign of the Son of man to appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth to mourn, when they see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Could there be a demonstration more complete than this, that the coming of Christ is pre-millennial? We have used the word mathematical, and we do so advisedly. It is self evident, that an epoch which by its very nature can occur but once, cannot be both before and after any given event. There can be but one time of tribulation such as that of which our Lord speaks; Daniel speaks of such an one at the time when his people shall be delivered; and our Lord says, that immediately after this tribulation there shall take place first the signs of his coming, then the event itself. We have thus the certain proof that Christ's coming here spoken of did not take place at the destruction of Jerusalem;—that it will take place when Daniel's people are delivered ;-or as the Lord himself says, just before the commencement of this discourse, "when they shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." all know that this is not at the close, but at the commencement, of the millennium. We We have thus anticipated the only objection that our post-millennial brethren urge against this view of the chapter, and shewn it to be utterly untenable. They say that the coming of the Son of man in v. 30, is a mere figure of speech, and represents the interposition of divine power in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans many centuries ago. But though the fallacy of this has been shewn already from the chapter itself, it may be well to examine it a little further. It may be well to examine each reference to the coming of the Son of man throughout this discourse of our Lord to his disciples. The discourse extends through chs. xxiv, and xxv, and the coming of the Lord, or the coming of the Son of man, is mentioned in it ten or eleven times, besides the evident allusion to it at the close of ch. xxiii. Now our brethren must understand a figura tive coming in all these places, or else they must understand a figurative coming in some of them, and a personal actual coming in the rest. Let us take it either way. Is it said that the expression is to be regarded as figurative throughout the discourse? What! where it is said "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory," are we to understand a mere figurative coming there? Is that which is represented by the coming of the Bridegroom a mere figurative coming also? When it is said again and again, Watch therefore," and, "Therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh," is all this merely figurative? Is there no personal, actual coming of Christ referred to in passages like these? Why these are the passages admitted by all to refer to the actual coming of Christ to judgment; and if they are not to be so understood, where is there a passage in the Bible that does foretell that event? One of these passages, that at the commencement of the parable of the sheep and goats in ch. xxv, is understood by our post-millennial brethren themselves, to predict the personal coming of Christ to judgment; and they argue from it to prove that it must be after the close of the millennium, and identical with the judgment of the great white throne! No, there is no one who can seriously contend, that the expression "coming of the Son of man" is to be understood figuratively throughout this discourse. If then it be asked, Why may we not understand the phrase figuratively in ch. xxiv, 30, and literally in other parts of the discourse? this is our reply. That to suppose our Lord using a given phrase ten or eleven times in one discourse literally; and that then in the same discourse, without any note of his using it in any different sense, he should once employ it figuratively, is to suppose him speaking in such a way as was calculated to deceive; and this, we are sure, is what our brethren would dread to impute to our blessed Lord, as much as we should ourselves. 2. No one can say as to the verse in question, that the language employed is weaker than in the rest, or that circumstances of solemnity announced in the other instances are wanting here. There is more of solemnity in the announcement of Christ's coming in this and the preceding verse than in any other mention of it in the whole discourse. Let the reader compare them for himself and judge. 3. As to the particular sense sought to be fixed upon v. 30, namely, that "the coming of the Lord here announced is just his figurative coming to judge and destroy Jerusalem," that is, by means of Titus and the Roman army, the following considerations prove it inadmissible altogether. First, our Lord's intimation of his coming again, which suggested the disciples' inquiry, and gave rise to the whole discourse, connects that coming, not with the destruction of Jerusalem, but with the Jews' conversion. "Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh" &c. They did not say this when Jerusalem was destroyed. Secondly, the disciples connect the coming of Christ, not with the overthrow of the temple, but with the end of the age. The end of the age did not arrive when Jerusalem was destroyed. There were to be wars and rumours of wars, but the end, says our Lord, is not yet. The gospel was to be preached in all the world, and then, he says, shall the end come. Now if the coming of which our Lord here discourses be at the end of the age, it could not be at the destruction of Jerusalem. Thirdly, the coming of the Son of man announced in v. 30, is declared by our Lord himself to be "immediately after the tribulation of those days"—a tribulation which we have seen the prophet Daniel declares to be not at the destruction of Jerusalem, |