declared to his fervants the prophets: and then the king. • doms of this world fhall become the kingdoms of our • Lord and his Chrift, and he fhall reign for ever, Apoc. x. 7; xi. 15. There is already fo much of the prophecy fulfilled, that as many as will take pains in this study may see fufficient inftances of God's providence: but then the fignal Revolutions, predicted by ALL the holy prophets, will at once both turn men's eyes upon confidering the predictions, and plainly interpret them33 ' His first chapter on the apocalypse Sir I. Newton concludes with the following obfervation: Amongst the interpreters of the laft age, there is scarce ONE of note, ⚫ who hath not made fome discovery worth knowing; and 'thence I feem to gather, that God is about opening thefe myfteries 34'

33

33 P. 251, 252. Like Sir I. Newton, Jurieu is difposed to believe, that the Deity may think proper' at last to make the prophecies be understood, ⚫ that they may the more easily be fulfilled.' See Suppl. to the Introd. of Jurieu; and vol. II. p. 39.

·

34 This obfervation is adopted by bishop Law (in his Theory of Religion, 3d ed. p. 170); and not unfimilar is the language of another learned and liberal prelate. Though the name has been difgraced by a number of ⚫ hireling compilers, yet no competent critic has,' says bp. Newcome, carefully ftudied the fcriptures for himself, without fmoothing the rug⚫gedness of the way to thofe who follow him.' Verf. of the Twelve Minor Prophets, pref. p. 9.

CHAP.

AMEMORABLE paffage in the invaluable prophecy

of Jefus, delivered by him on the mount of Olives a fhort time before his crucifixion, has been explained'; and it has been seen, that its fymbolic import is fcarcely darkened by any degree of doubt or ambiguity. But it is not fufficient that its meaning be ascertained. That of the context ought also to be examined into; and the refult of the enquiry, I apprehend, will be, not merely that the interpretation of the verse alluded to perfectly harmonizes with the context, but that it is the only one which does. In truth, the common explications of our Lord's prophecy labour under infuperable difficulties; and Dr. John Edwards, an orthodox clergyman, who flourished at the conclufion of the last and the commencement of the prefent century, accordingly obferves, that he had never met. with any expofitor, that gave a clear and fatisfactory ac• count of it 2.'

Another Dr. Edwards, a clergyman of a different period and different principles, fpeaking of the xxivth ch. of Matthew, fays, the various and opposite methods, which 'theologians have adopted to remove an objection which is too obvious to be overlooked, form, it must be confeffed, a very confiderable prefumption, that an adequate

In chapter xxii.

• Theologia Reformata, 1713, fol. vol. I. p. 471.

• folution

folution of the difficulty3 has not hitherto been dif

• covered, and that the objection is founded on the bafis of truth. Some interpreters imagine that the prophecy ⚫ relates entirely to the ruin of the Jewish nation: others, by the convenient introduction of types and double ⚫ fenfes, preferve in it a reference throughout to the con• fummation of all things: fome have contended that it ⚫ partly belongs to the former, and partly to the latter; ⚫ but what portions of it are applicable to the one, and ⚫ what to the other, they cannot ascertain: while a few have ventured to affert, that it represents the final judg ment as immediately fubfequent to the Jewish calami⚫ties.' The different modes of explaining our Lord's prophecy Dr. Edwards here profeffes to ftate. But there is another method of explication, of which this learned writer appears to be entirely ignorant; a method which has not, indeed, been adopted, or even been noticed, in any of the commentaries on the Gofpels which this country has produced3, but which I nevertheless believe to be the true one.

That the prophecy of Jefus is of very difficult interpretation is very generally admitted. Grotius and Lowth, Sykes, Benson, and Macknight, bp. Watson and the Taylors, have, Mr. Nisbett acknowledges (he is here

6

3 Of the particular difficulty to which Dr. Edwards alludes notice will hereafter be taken.

Serm. on the Predictions of the Apoftles concerning the End of the World, 1790, p. 18.

5 Accordingly when I first applied the latter part of the prophecy of Christ to the downfal of antichriftian ufurpation, and particularly that verse in it, which has been fo copiously explained in ch. xxii. like Dr. Edwards, I knew not that this application of it had received any countenance from preceding writers, being led to it folely by my knowledge of the import of our Lord's fymbols, and the internal evidence which appeared for embracing the interpretation.

Scripture Doctrine concerning the Coming of Chrift, p. 13.

⚫ fpeaking

speaking of the scripture-doctrine of the Coming of Chrift), 'all of them, without exception, manifeftly discovered ⚫ their embarrassment, and the difficulties which they la'boured under, in confidering the fubject.' Surely this affords a strong presumption, that they have all failed of discovering the true import of Chrift's celebrated prediction. To attempt to develope its meaning, after this declaration, may, perhaps, appear bold and prefuming. But however defirable it may be to be exempt from the charge; I do not conceive, that it is of fuch a nature as to command filence, or that the publication of important truths, or of probable conclufions, ought, in any case, to be fuppreffed from the apprehenfion of it.

As the prophecy of Christ was a reply to a question, the scope of that queftion it will be proper to state. It is in the Gofpel of Matthew that it is given at the greatest length. Jefus having affured his difciples (xxiv. 2.) that the time would arrive, when not one ftone of the temple would be left upon another; they came to him (v. 3.), faying, Tell us, when shall thefe things be? and what shall be the fign of thy coming, and of the end of the world"; or,

as

7 The word world is given up by the majority of English commentators as an improper rendering; and, in the Latin verfions of Jerom, Erasmus, Beza, and Montanus, arvos is tranflated not mundi, but feculi. 'Awv,' fays Mr. Waple (On the Rev. p. 248), 'fignifies an age of the world or fome eminent period of 'it;' and in correspondence with this Dr. Hammond observes (on Luke. i. 70), that in the New Teftament it most commonly is ufed in a general 'fense, not for the age of a man, nor again for an hundred years, but for an age of the world, or fome eminent part in the divifion of that.* Sometimes,' fays Leigh in his Critica Sacra, it is put for that which con'tinues a long time, and of which the end is not fo clear;' and this appears to be the exact meaning, which the difciples here annexed to the word. They enquired what would be the figns of the συντέλεια το αιώνος, at the expiration of which another αιών, or eminent period, was to commence ; and accordingly, in the writings of the fathers (fee Suicerus), the word alwy frequently food for this last period, that is to fay for the Thousand Years. In an ancient work, the book of Tobit (xiv. 5.), awv appears manifeftly

as it ought rather to be rendered, of the end of the period, i. e. the period then present? Dr. Campbell's translation is, What will be the fign of thy coming, and of the conclufion of this fate?

The queftion of the difciples was two-fold: and its import, when shall that deftruction of the temple which you mention happen; and what are the indications of thy coming, which Daniel foretells, and of the end of the present æra, when that coming is to take place?

manifeftly to fignify the first of these great periods, namely, that which is to continue till the commencement of the millennium; for it is there faid of

the Jews, that when the times of the period are fulfilled (πnfwTwos passos Te avos are the words of the Septuagint), that they fhall return from all places of their captivity. In Ifaiah, on the contrary, ch. lxv. 18, the expreffion, the age to come, signifies the fecord of these long periods, namely, the millennium; for when speaking of the future restoration of the Jews to their own land, he fays (according to the amended versions of bishop Lowth and Mr. Dodson), but ye shall rejoice and exult in the age to come.

To v. 6 of

ch. ix. of Ifaiah reference alfo deferves to be made; for in that verfe, ac cording to the beft copies of the Septuagint, and agreeably to the exifting Hebrew text, Chrif is called πατηρ το μελλοντος αιώνος, the Father of the future period. In like manner, in the Vulgate, it is Pater futuri feculi. See Mr. Dodfon's valuable Translation of Isaiah, and his elaborate note on this verse.

In the Targum on Kings the period of the Meffiah is denominated the age to come; and fays bishop Kidder,' among the other Jewish writers nothing is more common than to call the times of the Meffiah, the Olam • Hava,' i. c. o awv peλλwv, or the age to come. Demonftr. of the Meffah, vol. III. p. 381. I close the note with a quotation from Dr. Thomas Burnet. 'The expreffion, arwy μɛddwy, is either taken largely for the 'times of the. Meffiah in general, or more particularly for the times of the Mefliah's reign. In this laft confined and more proper fense it is distinct ⚫ both from the prefent age and from eternity, or that time, when Chrift is to deliver up all dominion into the hands of the Father. 1 Cor. xv. 24. 28. And in this proper fenfe, viz. taken for fome age between this prefent and eternity, it is often ufed in fcripture. Chrift, it is faid, will reign & Tw awrs μλλovтi,' Ephef. i. 22, 23. On the State of Departed Souls, p. 282. See fome fimilar obfervations in Dr. J. Edward's Hift. of the Difpenfations of Rel. vol. II. p. 641.

The