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JOSIAH FLETCHER, UPPER HAYMARKET;

LONDON: SIMPKIN AND CO.

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THE PROPHECY ON OLIVET.

PART I.

THE importance of the prophecy of Matthew xxiv. and xxv. to all the students of prophecy is generally confessed. Lines from every part of the prophetic oracles centre here. The present series of tracts is intended to examine and expound this prophecy more minutely than has yet been done.

And first it is assumed, that the prophecy does not, in its main scope, refer to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. This is shown by the considerations, (1) that no miracles were wrought by the false Christs then; (2) that if the Roman eagles be the abomination of desolation, they did not stand in the Holy place when opportunity for flight was given; and when they did stand in the temple, flight was impossible. (3) It is evident too, that the Roman invasion did not require the headlong speed of flight urged by the Savior; (4) nor was the whole world involved in the tribulation; (5) nor were the sun and moon darkened; (6) nor did the Savior appear. Other proofs might be given, but these, and (7) its parallelism with the Revelation, which was written after the destruction of Jerusalem, will suffice.

In order to enter fully into the drift of the prophecy before us, it will be necessary to notice the previous discourse of the Savior; and the state of parties. But a day or two before, he had presented himself to Jerusalem as her king, in the way foretold by prophecy, and was rejected. The rulers challenge him to display his credentials, and they are silenced. They

next challenge him concerning tribute to Cæsar, and since they have refused him, he gives them up to Cæsar as a nation. The Church is next judged, and in both Its great sects no light is found, as another writer has observed.

Then comes the solemn sentence which is found in Ch xxiii. The disciples and the multitude are first addressed, as to their part and duty under this sad state of things. And a similar division holds good, as I judge, in the prophecy also. Then Jesus turns to rebuke the Pharisees for oppression, vainglory, and hypocrisy; for blindness, and corruption of the law of God. But there was one boast, on which, in the midst of all their iniquity, they rested, that had they lived in the days of old, they would not have slain the prophets. This, the Savior says, should be proved false. God would try them on that very point, and they would be found wanting. Prophets would be sent, whom they would murder as their fathers had done.

Jesus then mourns over Jerusalem as the constant despiser of the love that sent so frequent messages by the prophets. It was still unchanged. He does not "Jerusalem that didst kill the prophets," but "Jerusalem that dost kill the prophets;" the character which it possessed of old, it retained still.

say,

He shuts up, therefore, the people and the city under the sentence of unbelief. The creditor was now no longer on the road with the debtor. He had delivered him to the judge Justice must take its course; the debt must be exacted of Israel to the last farthing. The time of mercy and forbearance had been spent, without the debtor's taking advantage of it to sue for forgiveness. Justice then must require the whole. Moses was their accuser, and the threatening curses of his law must be fulfilled on them: John iv. 45.

The interval between the Lord's taking leave of Jerusalem and his return to it is to be spent by her :

1. In enmity-the citizens hating the king appointed over them, and sending an embassy, expressive of their treasonable dissatisfaction and rebellion: Luke xix.

2. In blindness: the things belonging to her peace hidden from her eyes. She knew not the merciful visitation of Jesus; she would be equally blind to the on-coming of the visitation of wrath, till overwhelmed by it. And Paul describes them under that blindness as killing the Lord Jesus, and their prophets, persecuting the apostles, displeasing God, hating men; forbidding the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles" to fill up their sin alway;" for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost :*" 1 Thess. i, 14-17.

3. In calamity: The enemies casting a trench around her, and levelling to the dust her and her children: Luke xix. Her house is left a den of thieves, until the Redeemer's coming purges it, that it may be an house of prayer for all nations.

And as Jesus requires national repentance on their part before his return, so does Peter: "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out... and he shall send Jesus Christ:" Acts ii. 19, 20.

Observe, also, that the two great scenes in which the Savior delivers the prediction before us, are, the Temple, and the Mount of Olives; and both of these, are the spots wherein the principal events are to take place. In the temple Israel's iniquity is to be manifested, and the abomination of desolation set up. And the Mount of Olives will be one of the places of flight in the day of calamity, the spot to which Jesus will descend, and from whence he will judge the Gentiles assembled below.

The foregoing scenes then have been wholly Jewish, and this prepares us to see that a great part of the prophecy that follows is Jewish also. The Savior having condemned Israel as a nation and a religious body, next takes up his place as a prophet, pointing forward the hopes of the believing remnant to better things founded on his coming, the only word of

*Hogyn 815 TEλ05. That is, the final wrath of which the prophets speak. The omission of the article before Tλ05 shows that it is to be construed adverbially with ogy.

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