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both remain to run their course distinctly and separately; for the period of the papal power being already past, there should only remain the period of 1260 years of the second Antichrist; so that, in this case, we must be under the necessity of beginning the 1290 years at the same date as the 1260 years of the papal period began; and then again, beginning the 1335 years from the end of 1290 years, which would include the 1260 years of the future Antichristian power. The twelfth chapter of the Revelations, however, has presented to us some difficulties in this scheme; for if the 1260 years in which the woman seeks seclusion in the wilderness be the papal period, it appears very strange that the period of the second Antichristian power should be given in a mystical form, seeing that it was so openly revealed in the 1260 years during which the witnesses are to be clothed in sackcloth and ashes. Is it possible that the 1260 days or years mentioned in v. 6 of that chapter, should be the period of the second Antichrist forming a part of the 1290 years, and that the time, times, and half a time, should make a part of the 1335 years which are to succeed the 1290 years? We must leave to time the unravelling of such perplexing and difficult questions. We have brought down the fulfilment of Daniel's chronology to the latest date, the year 1806. Others that succeed us on the stage of time may continue it still further.

"Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all." This verse we think sufficiently explicit in itself not to stand in need of any comment. Bishop Newton makes the wilful king of v. 36 a continuation of the papal power; but we think that this cannot be done without the utmost perversion of the meaning of the language of prophecy. Did the popes not regard the God of their fathers, nor any other god? or did they magnify themselves above all gods? Surely this cannot be said. "But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things." "The word mahuzzim,” translated in our version "of forces," "is derived," says Bishop Newton, "from a radical verb, signifying, he was strong" and the proper meaning of it is, munition, bulwarks, fortresses. The literal translation should, therefore, stand thus : But in his estate shall he honour the God of fortresses; and a god, &c. We here learn that this wilful king shall worship a military idol, and ornament it with several of the most precious and costly things which the earth affords. "Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory : and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain." This verse we render. with Bishop Newton as follows: Thus shall he do: to the defenders of mahuzzim (fortresses) he shall multiply honour; and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain. This is merely saying that the wilful king shall honour the defenders of fortresses, and that he will divide among such persons the land as their reward. "And at the time of the end [au temps marque, sub tempus constitutum] shall the king

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of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships." Our readers have already seen that the kings of the north and south here mentioned, are the kings of Syria and Egypt; but who they may be at the time they set upon the Antichristian power going under the title of the wilful king, who, in retaliation of their aggressions, shall invade and overflow their countries, we cannot tell. It is vain to throw forth useless conjectures upon the fulfilment of the rest of the prophetical narrative of this chapter. We must leave the exposition of it to the expositor of prophecy who may survive the fulfilment of its last events. We may merely observe before closing, that we should be led to believe, from the expression of Tremellius, "sub tempus constitutum," that the date of the narrative of v. 40 was not just at an appointed time, but close upon it, the word sub implying as much.

PART II.

Commentaries on St Matthew, chapter xxiv., and 2 Thessalonians, chapter ii. 1-9.

ST MATTHEW, CHAP. XXIV.

THE next prophetical mention we have made of an Antichristian power is in the twenty-fourth chapter of St Matthew. Our Saviour, after reprobating the hypocrisy and self-conceited sanctity of the Jewish scribes and pharisees, says, Matth. xxiii. 32, "Fill ye up, then, the measure of your fathers;" as if the destruction of Jerusalem, which he was just about to announce, was the full measure of punishment of the Jewish nation for all their wickedness previous to that catastrophe. And then to give the lie to the sincerity of their professions of respect for the departed prophets, which the scribes and pharisees had been shewing by building the tombs of the prophets, and garnishing the sepulchres of the righteous, he tells them that they should in no wise be better than their fathers whom they condemned: v. 34 - 36" Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation." And so they did; for in little more than forty years from the time when our Saviour delivered these words, Jerusalem and its beautiful temple were destroyed by the Roman power. Our Saviour, after pouring out his pathetic lamentation over the fate of Jerusalem, adds these remarkable and important words, "Ye shall not

see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Now, the reader will be careful to notice, that it is not to his disciples that our Saviour is addressing these words, but to the scribes and pharisees of the Jewish nation; and that these words convey to these infidel Jews as plainly as words can convey any truth, that they should not see Jesus Christ till they should say, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord;" which they cannot be said to do till our Saviour's second advent to this earth, when he shall, Zechariah, xii., save Jerusalem in a miraculous manner from all the people round about, "when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem;" and when, v. 10, he "will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon" him " whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn,"—when, indeed, the Jewish nation shall say, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

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After this, "Jesus went out, and departed from the temple and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Our Saviour has now changed his company. He had been among the scribes and pharisees in the temple reprobating and denouncing vengeance upon them and their nation he is now among his own disciples, who were anxious to shew him the buildings of the temple, and the great stones of which they were composed, not one of which, however, he takes occasion to tell them, shall be left upon another. It must be observed here, that the future events of which our Saviour had been talking, both within the temple to the Jewish scribes and pharisees, and without the temple to his own disciples, had been the destruction and demolition of the Jewish city and temple; and, therefore, when his disciples ask of him, sitting upon the mount of Olives, When shall these things be? we must understand the future events comprehended in the expression " these things," to be merely the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem. To this question, however, on the part of his disciples, our Saviour returns no answer; for he had answered it already when he told the scribes and pharisees in the temple, perhaps in presence of his disciples, that "All these things shall come upon this generation"-the punishment of the iniquity of their fathers, as well as their own -the righteous blood of the prophets, and wise men, and scribes of the Mosaic as well as of those of the Christian covenant-the punishment of the whole Jewish nation by the spoliation of their city, the pollution of their temple, and the banishment of them from Judea among all the nations of the earth. But the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem is not the only subject of inquiry to the disciples. They ask of their

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divine master, also, two other questions, viz. "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world ?"

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"And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. 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: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." Our Saviour, in all this, seems to be addressing his disciples as if they were to be eye-witnesses of the events which he here describes, which they could not be, as their divine master must have known; for if the coming of Christ were even interpreted, according to Bishop Newton, to have been in judgment at the destruction of Jerusalem, the apostles could not have seen the abomination standing in the holy place, which the Bishop understood to be the Roman army under Titus standing in the temple; for none of them, except John, survived the destruction of Jerusalem. We would ask, however, if the destruction of Jerusalem and the coming of Christ were synchronous events, how comes it that our Saviour enumerates the standing of the abomination of desolation in the holy place as one of the signs precursory of his second advent? whereas, Bishop Newton makes that very event the act of our Saviour's advent; for surely if Jesus Christ came in judgment at the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem, he must have come when the Roman soldiers were polluting the former and sacking the latter. But on all such interpretations as that of the Bishop, our Saviour stamps the brand of error, when he tells the scribes and pharisees, the most infidel members of an infidel nation, that they should not see him (as a nation ?) till they should say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; which they certainly did not nationally say at the destruction of Jerusalem, nor at any time before it, but which the prophet Zechariah tells

us they shall virtually say when our Saviour "will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem," and when he "will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and" when "they shall look upon" him "whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him." Had Bishop Newton been in life, we would respectfully have asked, Since our Saviour says that this abomination of desolation is that which is spoken of by Daniel the prophet, without pointing out any passage in particular in that prophet's writings, what will your Lordship be pleased to make of Dan. xii. 11? For, supposing the taking away of the daily sacrifice, and the setting up of the abomination that maketh desolate in that verse to be synchronous acts, and that both were perpetrated, according to your Lordship's opinion, at the time of the destruction of the city and temple by the Roman arms, then what event marks the close of the period of 1290 years, which would date its beginning from the year 76, when both these events took place ?-what event happens in the year 1366? We before shewed, however, that the daily sacrifice was taken away from being the true worship, not by the Roman arms, but by the preaching of John the Baptist. Also, since the taking away of the daily sacrifice is mentioned in order after the polluting of the sanctuary of strength in Daniel, xi. 31, and the placing of the abomination that maketh desolate again after the taking away of the daily sacrifice; these two latter events must be either synchronous, or the former of them posterior in date to the latter. But, if synchronous, then, how could the placing of the abomination that maketh desolate be a sign precursory of the taking away of the daily sacrifice by the Roman arms, at the time of our Saviour's coming in judgment at the destruction of Jerusalem? But, we believe, most interpreters are now agreed, that the 1290 years begin to run their course either at the same time with the papal period of 1260 years, or at some date posterior to its close; therefore, the abomination that maketh desolate could not be set up prior, at least, to the 533, or, as we have determined it, to the year 546, the commencement of the papal period. Indeed, it is quite evident, from Dan. xii. 11, that the taking away of the daily sacrifice, and the setting up of the abomination that maketh desolate, there mentioned, must either be synchronous events, or the latter posterior in date to the former, in which case, the period of 1290 years would lie between them; and when we consider that this period of 1290 years is given in answer to a question of Daniel's concerning the time of duration of the events in Dan. xi., occurring after the end of the date determined by the formula in Dan. xii. 7, or the year 1806, as we have shewn, we think it is but just to conclude, that the close of the period of 1290 years, if not its beginning, must be posterior in date, at least, to the year 1806. We are, therefore, fairly entitled to infer, that your Lordship has failed in your interpretation of the coming of our Saviour to be only in judgment at the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem.

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In the passages quoted above, our Saviour seems to be warning the Christians of future generations against being deceived in imagining

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