which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold (therefore) your house is left unto you desolate. Ye shall not see me benceforth, till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!"(Matt. xxiii. 37.) Our Saviour, as the king of their theocracy and the God of Israel, would often have gathered them:he often called, but they would not make a suitable reply to his invitations. Passages to this effect are innumerable in the prophets. "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine beart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together, I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger." (Hosea xi. 8.) That is, not in the full measure that their wickedness had deserved: for the chapter concludes with a prophecy of their restoration, as most of God's threatenings to that favored people do.-Even in this the hour of judgment, and while their judge was passing the sen

tence upon them which could not be reversed, he still mingles mercy with his severity. "Your house," said he, is about to be "left into you desolate." In a short space of time after my departure, that desolation of your city, and temple, and country, foretold in the prophets, and that indignation which is to continue for many centuries, shall come upon you; and you shall see no more of me from that time, as your Messias and King, “until the indignation be over past," and you shall nationally return to me, with mourning and shame for your ingratitude and unbelief, and with universal acclamation," say, blessed is be that cometh in the name of the Lord!"*

* Blessed &c.—This is a quotation from Psalm cxviii. 26, which I therefore consider, from the manner in which the quotation is applied by our Lord, as well as from the subject matter of it, as one of those divine hymns composed in the spirit of prophecy for the joyous occasion of the reconciliation of Israel with their Messias and King in the latter days. This seems a kind of proverbial expression appropriate to the coming of Messias, as we find (Matt. xxi. 9.) the multitude that accompanied Jesus riding into Jerusalem as the Messias of the prophets, (Zech. ix. 9. Isaiah Ixii. 11.) were divinely moved to cry out in that and other appropriate expressions, "Hosanna to the son of David, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the

Our Lord then proceeds to deliver an ac count of his figurative advent as judge and avenger, which he does at great length, and gives such signs, by which that day of Christ should be distinguished, that the believers might be upon their guard, and escape from the impending destruction. It is evident that the final and general judgment cannot be the purport of the twenty fourth of Matthew, in any other than a figurative and secondary sense, and as the woes which the unbelieving jews brought upon themselves by their wickedness, are typical of the eternal reprobation of the wicked at the last day. The whole of his prophecy upon this occasion, was to be punctually accomplished within a few years. "Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass," says he, "until all

Lord, Hosanna in the highest." (Psalm cxviii. 25.) The scribes took great offence at this, and wished him to silence such an ignorant misapplication of scripture, but he told them it was not misapplied, but put into their mouths by the spirit of God, for which he quoted Psalm viii. 2. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise"-and he added, that "if these should hold their peace," on such an occasion, the very stones would cry out." (Luke xix. 40.)

these things be fulfilled." The signs which he gives to the disciples, and bids them be careful to observe, and make their own use of them, shew manifestly that a temporal and speedy judgment was what he meant. "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." (Matt.xxiv. 15.)

"The sign of the Son of man in heaven," and "the abomination of desolation," here pointed out by our blessed Lord, in the mystical phrase of Daniel, is further explained by the account St. Luke gives of this conversation ; as no doubt, Jesus would not leave in an ambiguous uncertainty the real meaning of a sign, which it so much behoved the believers to understand. When ye shall see Jerusalem-compassed about with armies,-then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea, flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it, depart out, and let not them

which are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the gentiles, until the times of the gentiles be fulfilled." (Luke xxi. 20.)

The sense and purport of our Lord's quotation from Daniel is to be found in chapter ix. 26. "And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself, and the people of the prince that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood."-This alludes to the flood of barbarians, the countless swarms of saracens, by which the country was overrun, after it had been destroyed, in a great measure, by the romans. "And unto the end of the war desolations are determined. For the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate." (Dan.ix.27.) The war is that which the unbelieving jews should continue to wage against Christ their

F