thing else which the phrase of "our Lord's coming," according to any figurative interpretation of it, can denote. It should seem, therefore, that in all those passages of the epistles in which the coming of our Lord is holden out, either as a motive to patience and perseverance, or to keep alive that spirit of vigilance and caution which is necessary to make our calling sure, — it should seem, that in all these passages the coming is to be taken literally for our Lord's personal coming at the last day; and that the figure is rather to be sought in those expressions which, in their literal meaning, might seem to announce his immediate arrival. And this St. Peter seems to suggest, when he tells us, in his second epistle, that the terms of "soon" and "late" are to be very differently understood, when applied to the great operations of Providence, and to the ordinary occurrences of human life. "The Lord," says he, "is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." "Soon" and "late," are words whereby a comparison is rather intended of the mutual proportion of different intervals of time, than the magnitude of any one by itself defined; and the same thing may be said to be coming either soon or late, according as the distance of it is compared with a longer or a shorter period of duration. Thus, although the day of judgment was removed undoubtedly by an interval of many ages from the age of the apostles, yet it might in their days be said to be at hand, if its distance from them was but a small part of its original distance from the creation of the world, that is, if its distance then was but a small part of the whole period of the world's existence, which is the standard, in reference to which, so long as the world shall last, all other portions of time may be by us most properly denominated long or short. There is again another use of the words "soon" and "late," whereby any one portion of time, taken singly, is understood to be compared, not with any other, but with the number of events that are to come to pass in it in natural consequence and succession. If the events are few in proportion to the time, the succession must be slow, and the time may be the succes called long: If they are many, sion must be quick, and the time may be called short in respect of the number of events, whatever be the absolute extent of it. It seems to be in this sense that expressions denoting speediness of event are applied by the sacred writers to our Lord's coming. In the day of Messiah the Prince, in the interval between our Lord's ascension and his coming again to judgment, the world was to be gradually prepared and ripened for its end. The apostles were to carry the tidings of salvation to the extremities of the earth: They were to be brought before kings and rulers, and to water the new-planted churches with their blood. Vengeance was to be executed on the unbelieving Jews, by the destruction of their city, and the dispersion of their nation. The Pagan idolatry was to be extirpated, the Man of Sin to be revealed. Jerusalem is yet to be trodden down: The remnant of Israel is to be brought back, the elect of God to be gathered from the four winds of heaven. And when the apostles speak of that event as at hand which is to close this great scheme of Providence, — a scheme in its parts so extensive and so various, they mean to intimate how busily -- the great work is going on, and with what confidence, from what they saw accomplished in their own days, the first Christians might expect in due time the promised consummation. That they are to be thus understood, may be collected from our Lord's own parable of the fig-tree, and the application which he teaches us to make of it. After a minute prediction of the distresses of the Jewish war, and the destruction of Jerusalem, and a very general mention of his second coming, as a thing to follow in its appointed season, he adds "Now learn a parable of the fig-tree. When its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." That it is near; so we read in our English Bibles; and expositors render the word "it," by the ruin foretold, or the desolation spoken of. But what was the ruin foretold, or desolation spoken of? The ruin of the Jewish nation -the desolation of Jerusalem. What were all these things, which, when they should see, they might know it to be near? - All the particulars of our Saviour's detail; that is to say, the destruction of Jerusalem, with all the circumstances of confusion and distress with which it was to be accompanied. This exposition, therefore, makes, as I conceive, the desolation of Jerusalem the prognostic of itself, the sign and the thing signified the same. The true rendering of the original I take to be -"So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that He is near at the doors." He, that is, the Son of Man, spoken of in the verses immediately preceding, as coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The approach of summer, says our Lord, is not more surely indicated by the first appearances of spring, than the final destruction of the wicked by the beginnings of vengeance on this impenitent people. The opening of the vernal blossom is the first step in a natural process which necessarily terminates in the ripening of the summer fruits; and the rejection of the Jews, and the adoption of the believing |