everlasting punishment: but the subject may justify the insertion of his remarks, at considerable length:

46 And these shall go away into struction of Jerusalem, and commenced speaking of the "general judgment," somewhere between the beginning of "It is related, in the first verse, [of ch. xxiv., and the end of ch. xxv.; but ch. xxiv.,] that Jesus went out, and where, they cannot agree. This fact is departed from the temple; and his disalluded to in the foregoing judicious ciples came to him to show him the notes by Mr. Ballon; but it may per- buildings of the temple;' and it is haps deserve more particular attention. added, in the second verse, that 'Jesus If Jesus actually made such a transi- said unto them, see ye not all these tion,-passing over some thousands of things? verily I say unto you, there years, and introducing a vastly more shall not be left here one stone upon important topic of discourse,-some another which shall not be thrown indication might reasonably be expected down.' First, then, let it be admitted, to denote the point where he passed that these words apply, in their immefrom one subject to the other. But no diate reference, to the temple at Jerusasuch indication is found. And com- lem and its destruction, which, as is mentators are utterly at faalt and in known from the history of Josephus, confusion; and, like the people of was as total as is here implied. - Let Ephesus, some cry one thing, and some then the place be pointed out where the another. Acts xix. 32. The following new subject commences. But let this may serve as a sample of their opinions, be done in such a manner, as to be in regard to the precise point, where the consistent with the fact, that a space great change of subject occurs, in this of not much less than two thousand discourse of our Lord. Dr. S. Clarke years, at the least, was to intervene, gives a double application as far as ch. between the accomplishment of the latXXV. 13, and applies the remainder ex- ter part of the prophecy and that of the clusively to the day of judgment; former for the first part of it is conTrapp fixes on ch. xxiv. 23, as the sidered to have been fully accomplished point, where the description of the final about A. D. 70; and the remainder not judgment begins; the authors of the to be accomplished yet: it is also to be Dutch Annotations, on xxiv. 29; Hey- recollected, that no events belonging to lin, on xxiv. 36; Macknight, on xxiv. this intervening period are supposed to 44; Scott, on the latter part of xxiv., be treated of in the prophecy, but that, not indicating the exact point--" towards in whatever place the transition is the close" is his expression; Dr. A. made, it skips at once from the destrucClarke, on xxv. 1,-though, when he tion of Jerusalem to the end of the comes to xxv. 31, he admits that the world. Of course, with these premises preceding portion may refer to the assumed, every reader will expect to destruction of Jerusalem,-the remain-perceive some well-defined mark of so der, he applies to the general judgment; Bishop Porteus fixes on xxv. 31; Hammond gives a double interpretation thus far, and applies what follows to the general judgment; Bishop Pearce admits that Jesus continued to speak of the destruction of Jerusalem as far as ver. 41; but there, and in ver. 46, he thinks he "had the day of general judgment in his thoughts."

This diversity of opinion, and, in fact, the inherent and insurmountable difficulty attending any attempt to fix on a point of transition from one of these subjects to the other, of infinitely greater moment and at a period indefinitely remote, is well and forcibly stated by Noble, in a work entitled "The Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures Asserted," &c. The importance of the

great an hiatus. How will this expectation be answered? So far from discovering anything like it, no person can read the two chapters, and draw his inference from their contents alone, without concluding that the events announced are to follow each other in succession, unbroken by any wide interruption whatever. Accordingly, though commentators are now generally agreed that the hiatus must exist, they are by no means unanimous in fixing its situation.

"As before observed, the circumstances foretold, as far as the twenty-eighth verse of the twenty-fourth chapter, may, by having recourse here and there to figure, be applied to the calamities which befell the Jewish nation: what follows, respecting the coming of the

righteous into life eternal.

A

CHAPTER XXVI.
ND it came to pass, when
Jesus had finished all these

sayings, he said unto his disciples, 2 Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.

the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins.' Who cannot see that the parable of the ten virgins, 'five of whom were wise, and five were foolish,' is a continuation and further illustration of the subject introduced by the parable of the faithful and wicked servant; that both relate to the same series of events, and leave no room for supposing an interval of two thousand years between the one and the other? And even if the subjects were not so obviously connected, what propriety would there be in passing from one event to another so distant, by such a copulative as then,-a word that always denotes either identity of time, or im

Son of man in the clouds of heaven, and his sending his angels with a great sound of a trumpet to gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, does not, with equal convenience, admit this application: wherefore many eminent writers consider the prophecies relating to the Jews to terminate with the twenty-eighth verse, and all that follows to belong to the greater events commonly designated as the second coming of the Lord, and the general judgment on the world. Unfortunately, however, let both parts of the chapter denote what they may, they are connected together by the binding word immediately. Immediately after the tribula-mediate succession? tion of those days, shall the sun be "A third modification of the same darkened,' &c. and then shall ap general plan of interpretation has therepear the sign of the Son of man in fore been proposed by Dr. Doddridge. heaven.' Extreme violence, therefore, He adheres to the system of the hiatus, is done to the words by those who but he seems to have felt, more strongly thrust in, between the tribulation pre- than some, the difficulties with which viously described and this immediate it is attended: wherefore, in hopes to appearance of the Son of man, an inter- avoid them, he steers a middle course val of two thousand years! On this between the two theories already noaccount, other eminent writers under- ticed. Let us see, then, what degree stand the appearing of the Son of man, of probability he has been able to give and all the rest of the chapter, to be to the scheme: 'Immediately after the merely added in amplification of the affliction of those days which I have previous subject; affirming, however, now been describing, the sun shall as that Jesus Christ intended that his it were be darkened, and the moon disciples should consider the judgment shall not seem to give her usual light; he was going to inflict on the Jewish and the stars shall fall from heaven, nation as a forerunner and emblem of and the powers of the heavens, all the that universal judgment he is to exer- mighty machines and strong movecise at the last day; wherefore, they ments above, shall be shaken and broadd,' he gives in the twenty-fifth chap-ken to pieces; that is, according to the ter a description of the last judgment;' (Beausobre and L'Enfant's note on Matt. xxv. 1;) for which reasons, they place the grand hiatus between the two chapters. But, unhappily, a particle, the nature of which is to draw things into such close connexion as admits of nothing being interposed between them, here also occurs. The divine prophet concludes the twenty-fourth chapter with describing the reward which the faithful servant, and the punishment which the unfaithful, shall receive at his coming; and he commences the twenty-fifth chapter thus: "Then shall

sublimity of that prophetic language to which you have been accustomed, the whole civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the nation shall not only be shocked, but totally dissolved. And then shall there evidently appear such a remarkable hand of Providence in avenging my quarrel upon this sinful people, that it shall be like the sign of the Son of man in heaven at the last day; and all the tribes of the land shall then mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming as it were in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, for that celestial army which shall ap

chief priests, and the scribes, and It seems therefore much fitter, with Dr. Whitby, (after Grotius,) to explain it of the last day, when heaven and earth shall pass away.' Well then, the Doctor has now taken the leap. The simple connective 'but' has carried him over an interval of not less, according to his computation, than three thousand years. No sooner, however, has he taken this leap, than he deems it necessary to jump back again. He seems to apply the very next verses to the subject just dismissed: but in a note on the fortieth and forty-first verses, Then shall two be in the field,' &c., he explicitly says, that though these words may allusively be accommodated to the day of judgment, yet he doubts not they originally refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, to which alone they are properly applicable.' He now, however, determines to fly for the last time across the gulf: so he adds, 'I humbly conceive that the grand transition, about which commentators are so much divided, and so generally mis

3 Then assembled together the pear in the air, marshalled round the city, shall be a sure token to them that the angels of God, and the great Lord of those heavenly hosts, are set as it were in array against them.'- On the words immediately after the tribulation of those days,' he remarks thus: 'Archbishop Tillotson and Brennius, with many other learned interpreters, imagine that our Lord here makes the transition from the destruction of Jerusalem, which had been the subject of his discourse thus far, to the general judgment: but as I think it would be very harsh to suppose all the sufferings of the Jewish nation, in all ages, to be called the tribulation of those days;' [what occasion, by the by, for supposing the sufferings of the Jewish nation in all ages to be treated of at all?] so it would, on the other hand, be equally so to say that the general judgment, which probably will not commence till at least a thousand years after their restoration, will happen immediately after their sufferings; nor can I find any one instance in which eutheōs, (εvéws,) immediate-taken, is made precisely after these two ly, is used in such a strange latitude. What is said below (in Matt. xxiv. 34; Mark xiii. 30; Luke xxi. 32,) seems also an insuperable objection against such an interpretation. I am obliged therefore to explain this section as in the paraphrase; though I acknowledge many of the figures used may with more literal propriety be applied to the last day, to which there may be a remote though not an immediate reference.' Moved by these considerations, this worthy divine, though he sees some difficulties in the way, determines to apply the prophecy, thus far, to the de- To the foregoing graphic account of struction of Jerusalem. But when he the difficulties which beset Dr. Dodcomes to the thirty-sixth verse, though dridge, in the management of the "hiathe series continues to flow without the tus scheme," I only add, that whoever least sign of interruption, he paraphra- shall adopt any other point of "transises the words, 'But of that day and tion" in chapter xxiv. or xxv. will hour knoweth no man, no, not the find his leap to be quite as difficult angels of heaven, but my Father only,' and hazardous. The truth is, the whole in reference to the final sentence' of discourse is so closely connected, and mankind; and adds this note: 'I can- so manifestly refers to the same general not agree with Dr. Clarke in referring subject, that an interval of some thouthis verse to the destruction of Jerusa- sands of years cannot be thrust into lem, the particular day of which was any portion of it, without the utmost not a matter of great importance; and violence. Its commencement confessas for the season of it, I see not how it edly refers to the destruction of Jerusacould properly be said to be entirely lem, and the events connected with it, unknown, after such an express declara--in the order of time, at least; and tion that it should be in that generation. any attempt to prove that such is not

verses.' Let the reader then examine whether he can here find the marks of 'the grand transition,' so conspicuous to Dr. Doddridge; or whether he will not rather find that the discourse proceeds in the same unbroken series, making no transition but from the announcement of awful facts to the deducing from them of weighty admonitions. Thus Dr. Doddridge's well-meant attempt to relieve the hiatus scheme of its difficulties only issues in a demonstration that the difficulties are insuperable." pp. 217-223.