thousand years, the impious confederacy of Gog and Magog begins to be formed: and, in due time, that confederacy is miraculously destroyed by fire from heaven. After this, the literal judgment both of the quick and of the dead, in the day of the literal second advent of Christ, takes place; and the present mundane system, agreeably to the prophecy of St. Peter', is destroyed by a deluge of fire: but nothing is said, as to the precise time when this catastrophe will occur; all that we know on the subject is, that it will be posterior to the destruction of Gog and Magog; how long posterior, whether many centuries or a few days, we are not told. Hence I conclude, that the literal day of judgment at the final consummation of all things must needs be that day and that hour which is unknown to all save the Deity.

Such being the case, when our Lord tells us, in close connection with his notice of this unknown day and hour, that, as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be; we are almost inevitably led to suppose, that he directs us to look, beyond his figurative coming at the close of the latter three times and a half, to his literal coming at the literal day of doom for the purpose of finally judging both the quick and the dead. If, then, we have any ground for holding this opinion, the signs of Christ's ultimate coming,

12 Peter iii. 7-12.

2 Rev. xx.

like the signs of his figurative coming at the close of the latter three times and a half, will resemble the signs which preceded the destruction of the old world by water. That is to say, the literal day of judgment will suddenly come as a snare upon mankind in the midst of a period, characterised by secularity and profligacy and violence and lawlessness and infidelity. Unawed by the successive judgment and destruction of two antichristian factions, the one at the commencement and the other subsequent to the end of the Millennium, men will again corrupt themselves to such a pitch, that the Gospel, both in belief and in practice, will be well nigh obliterated. When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

IV. We have now gone through the whole of our Lord's very remarkable prophecy; which, step by step, leads us, in strict chronological order, from his own time, to the universal judgment both of the quick and of the dead: and, when the three different accounts of it, as given by the three first evangelists, are properly harmonised in one single strain or discourse; so lucid is the arrangement, that, except a discussion respecting the chronological epoch and the true idea of the prophetic day of judgment and the figurative coming of the Son of man, we have had little to do beyond barely following the tenor of the prediction and comparing it (so far as it has hitherto been accomplished) with the page of history. But we have next to consider a very serious difficulty, which must by no means be passed

over in silence; more especially as the passage, where it occurs, has been the chief ground of that erroneous exposition, which would confine one of the most magnificent prophecies of Holy Writ to the mere destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by Titus. .

In all the three evangelists, between the figurative coming of the Son of man after the end of the tribulation of the Jews and the arrival of that awful day which is known to the Father alone, our Lord is described as making a solemn declaration, which our English translators have expressed in the following terms.

Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away, until all these things be fulfilled1.

Now, from such language, Christ has been understood to intimate, that all those things, which he had been foretelling, should come to pass, ere the then existing generation of men should have been removed by death from off the face of the earth. Such, therefore, being the case, his whole prophecy, until he comes to speak emphatically of THAT day and THAT hour, cannot reach beyond the sacking of Jerusalem by Titus: nay some would even refer exclusively, to the same early period, what he says of THAT day and THAT hour, plainly as he is then describing the ultimate literal judgment; on the plea, that the precise moment when the temple should

Matt. xxiv. 34. Mark xiii. 30. Luke xxi. 32.

be overthrown was known only to the Father, though. the Son was commissioned to declare in general terms, that it should be destroyed some time in the course of the then living generation 1.

This difficulty has been felt by all those expositors, who, with whatever smaller variations, would view our Lord's prediction as chronologically extending to the very consummation of all things: and they have, consequently, perceived the absolute necessity of endeavouring to remove it.

a

Yet the difficulty before us is, in truth, more apparent than real. The original word, which our translators have rendered generation, has been commonly supposed to denote the then existing generation of men or the generation of men who were contemporary with the Apostles. But the primary meaning of the word is a race or family or nation: it is only in a secondary sense, that it acquires the signification of a single generation of contemporaries. Let it, then, in the present pas

See Bp. Newton's Dissert. on the Proph. vol. ii. p. 317,

319-324.

I subjoin the very accurate and satisfactory exposition of the word, which has been given by Scapula.

Γενεά, ή, Genus, Progenies. "Οφρ' εὖ εἰδῇς ἡμετέρην γενεήν. Homer. Iliad. lib. vi. ver. 150, 151. Taúrns Toɩ yeveñs te kai aïμaтos εvxoμaι elva. Ibid. lib. vi. ver. 211. Et Philo de vita Mosis. Καταλείπει μὲν πατρίδα καὶ γενεὰν καὶ πατρῷον olkov. Expon. etiam, Etas, Seculum. Scap. Lex. in voc. Γενεά.

To these authorities may be added an equally decisive one

sage, be understood in its primary and proper sense; and the whole difficulty will vanish: for, in that case, our Lord's declaration will run as follows.

Verily, I say unto you, this nation shall not pass away, until all these things shall have been fulfilled.

The word, which we translate pass away, clearly means to perish or to experience dissolution or to pass away to destruction: for the same word occurs, in this precise sense, in the very next verse. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. Hence our Lord declares, that, to whatever trials the Jewish nation might be subjected, it should never pass away or perish or be dissolved as a distinct people, until all the things which he had been predicting should have been fulfilled. But his prophecy reaches, to the very consummation of the world, and to the very day of final

from Eschylus. Ως ὡμοφρόνως δαίμων ἐνέβη Περσῶν γενεᾷ. Pers. ver. 912, 913.

The primary meaning, then, of the word is a race or family or nation: and, accordingly, it is used in this sense, both by the Seventy, and by the writers of the New Testament. Thus, in Gen. xliii. 7, the Seventy use the word yɛvɛa to express what our translators render kindred: and they similarly employ the same word for the same purpose in Numb. x. 30 and elsewhere. Thus also, as Beza rightly understands them, the writers of the New Testament use yɛved to denote a people or nation, in Matt. xxiii. 36, Luke xxi. 32, xvii. 25, and in other places. In like manner Chrysostom uses the same word to describe the whole collective body of Christians. He styles them ή γενεὰ ζητούνTWY TOV Kúpov, the people or nation of those who seek the Lord. See Mede's Works, book iv. epist. 12. p. 752.