signs, cannot be the same thing with the coming of the Son of Man, which is to follow them.

Upon these grounds, I conclude that, under the image of these celestial disorders, the overthrow of some wicked nations in the last ages is predicted; probably of some who shall pretend to oppose, by force of arms, the return of the chosen race to the holy land, and the reestablishment of their kingdom. And if this be the probable interpretation of the signs in the sun and moon, the advent which is to succeed those signs can hardly be any other than the real advent at the last day.

In my first discourse upon this subject, I had occasion to obviate an objection that might be raised, from the declaration which our Lord subjoins to his parable of the fig-tree: “ This generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled.” I showed that the words all these things do not denote all the particulars of the whole preceding prophecy, but all the things denoted by the same words in the application of that parable, namely, all the first signs which answer to the budding of the fig-tree's leaves.

Great stress has been laid upon the expressions with which, as St. Matthew reports them, our Lord introduces the mention of those signs in sun and moon which are to precede his advent: “ Immediately after the tri. bulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened.” The word immediately may seem to direct us to look for this darkness of sun and moon in something immediately succeeding the calamities which the preceding part of the prophecy describes; and as nothing could more immediately succeed the distresses of the Jewish war, than the demolition of the city and the dispersion of the nation, hence, all that goes before in St. Matthew's narrative of these discourses, hath been understood of the distresses of the war, and these celestial disorders of the final dissolution of the Jewish polity in church and state ;

which catastrophe, it hath been thought, our Lord might choose to clothe in" figurative language, on purpose to perplex the unbelieving persecuting Jews, if his dis. courses should ever fall into their hands, that they might not learn to avoid the impending evil.” But we learn from St. Luke, that before our Lord spoke of these signs, he mentioned the final dissolution of the Jewish polity, in the plainest terms, without any figure. He had said, “ They," i. e. (as appears by the preceding sentence) this people “shail fall by the edge of the

“ sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles." And to what purpose should he afterwards propound in a figure what he had already described in plain words? Or how could the figurative description, thus accompanied with the interpretation, serve the purpose of confounding and perplexing? I apprehend, that the whole difficulty which the word immediately is supposed to create in that interpretation, which refers the signs in the sun and moon to the last ages of the world, is founded on a mistake concerning the extent of that period of affiction which is intended by the tribulation of those days. These words, I believe, have been always understood of those few years during which the Roman armies harassed Judea and besieged the holy city: whereas it is more agreeable to the general cast of the prophetic language, to understand them of the whole period of the tribulation of the Jewish nation, that whole period during which Jerusalem is to be trodden down. This tribulation began indeed in those days of the Jewish war; but the period of it is at this day in its course, and will not end till the time shall come, predetermined in the counsels of God, for the restoration of that people to their ancient seats. This whole period will probably be a period of affliction, not to the Jews only, but also in some degree to the Christian church; for not before the expiration of it will the true church be secure from persecutions from without—from corruption, schism, and heresy within. But when this period shall be run out—when the destined time shall come for the conversion and restoration of the Jewish people,--immediately shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light; great commotions and revolutions will take place among the kingdoms of the earth. Indeed, the re-establishment of the Jewish kingdom is, in the nature of the thing, not likely to be effected without great disturbances. By this interpretation, and I think in no other way, the parallel passages of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, may be brought exactly to one and the same meaning.

I shall now venture to conclude, notwithstanding the great authorities which incline the other way, that the phrase of " our Lord's coming," wherever it occurs in his prediction of the Jewish war, as well as in most other passages of the New Testament, is to be taken in its literal meaning, as denoting his coming in person, in visible pomp and glory, to the general judgment.

Nor is the belief of that coming, so explicitly foretold, an article of little moment in the Christian's creed, however some who call themselves Christians may affect to slight it. It is true, that the expectation of a future retribution is what ought, in the nature of the thing, to be a sufficient restraint upon a wise man's conduct, though we were uninformed of the manner in which the thing will be brought about, and were at liberty to suppose that every individual's lot would be silently determined, without any public entry of the Almighty Judge, and without the formality of a public trial. But our merciful God, who knows how feebly the allurements of the present world are resisted by our reason, unless imagination can be engaged on reason's side, to paint the prospect of future good, and display the terror of future

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suffering, hath been pleased to ordain that the business shall be so conducted, and the method of the business so clearly foretold, as to strike the profane with awe, and animate the humble and the timid. He hath warned us,--and let them who dare to extenuate the warning, ponder the dreadful curse with which the book of

prophecy is sealed—“ If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life;" —God hath warned us

. that the inquiry into every man's conduct will be public, -Christ himself the Judge,—the whole race of man, and the whole angelic host, spectators of the awful scene. Before that assembly, every man's good deeds will be declared, and his most secret sins disclosed. As no elevation of rank will then give a title to respect, no obscurity of condition shall exclude the just from public honour, or screen the guilty from public shame. Opulence will find itself no longer powerful, poverty will be no longer weak; birth will no longer be distinguished, meanness will no longer pass unnoticed. The rich and poor will indeed strangely meet together; when all the inequalities of the present life shall disappear, and the conqueror and his captive—the monarch and his subject—the lord and his vassal—the statesman and the peasant—the philosopher and the unlettered hind-shall find their distinctions to have been mere illusions. The characters and actions of the greatest and the meanest have in truth been equally important, and equally public; while the eye of the omniscient God hath been equally upon them all,—while all are at last equally brought to answer to their common Judge, and the angels stand around spectators, equally interested in the dooms of all. The sentence of every man will be pronounced by him who cannot be merciful to those who shall have willingly sold themselves to that abject bondage from which he died to purchase their redemption,

who, nevertheless, having felt the power of temptation, knows to pity them that have been tempted; by him on whose mercy contrite frailty may rely-whose anger hardened impenitence must dread. "To heighten the so. lemnity and terror of the business, the Judge will visi. bly descend from heaven,-the shout of the archangels and the trumpet of the Lord will thunder through the deep,--the dead will awake, the glorified saints will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air; while the wicked will in vain call upon the mountains and the rocks, to cover them. Of the day and hour when these things shall be, knoweth no man; but the day and hour for these things are fixed in the eternal Father's counsels. Our Lord will come, he will come unlooked for, and may come sooner than we think.

God grant, that the diligence we have used in these meditations may so fix the thought and expectation of that glorious advent in our hearts, that by constant watchfulness on our own part, and by the powerful succour of God's Holy Spirit, we may be found of our Lord, when he cometh, without spot and blameless!