time of the transfiguration, what will be the amount of the solemn asseveration in the text? Nothing more than this, —that in the numerous assembly to which our Lord was speaking, composed perhaps of persons of all ages, there were some, the expressions certainly intimate no great number, but some few of this great multitude there were, who were not to die within a week; for so much was the utmost interval of time between this discourse and the transfiguration. Our great Lord and Master was not accustomed to amuse his followers with any such nugatory predictions.

The like argument sets aside another interpretation, in which our Lord's ascension and the mission of the Holy Ghost are considered as the "coming in his kingdom" intended in the text. Of what importance was it to tell a numerous assembly (for it was not to the disciples in particular, but to the whole multitude, as we learn from St. Mark, that this discourse was addressed),-to what purpose, I say, could it be, to tell them that there were some among them who were destined to live half a year?

Both these interpretations have given way to a third, in which "the coming of our Lord in his kingdom" is supposed to denote the epoch of the destruction of Jerusalem. This exposition is perhaps not so well warranted as hath been generally imagined, by the usual import of the phrase of the "coming of the Son of man," in other passages of holy writ. There is no question but that the coming of our Lord, taken literally, signifies his coming in

person to the general judgment; and, if the time permitted me to enter upon a minute examination of the several texts wherein the phrase occurs, it might perhaps appear, that, except in the book of Revelations, the figurative sense is exceedingly rare in the Scriptures of the New Testament, if not altogether unexampled. Be that as it may, there is no question but that the coming of our Lord, taken literally, signifies his coming in person to the

general judgment; and the close connexion of the words of the text with what immediately precedes, in our Lord's discourse, makes it unreasonable, in my judgment, to look for any thing here but the literal meaning. In the verse next before the text, our Lord speaks of the coming of the Son of man in terms that necessarily limit the notion of his coming to that of his last coming to the general judgment. "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works." And then he adds, Verily, I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." First, it is said the Son of man shall come; it is immediately added, that some then present should see him coming. To what purpose is this second declaration, but as a repetition of the first, with the addition of a circumstance which might interest the audience in the event, and awaken their serious attention to it? "I will come, and some of you shall see me coming." Can it be supposed, that in such an asseveration, the word to come may bear two different senses; and that the coming, of which it was said that it should be seen, should not be visible? But what then? Did our Lord actually aver that any of those who upon this occasion were his hearers, should live to the day of the general judgment? It cannot be supposed: that were to ascribe to him a prediction which the event of things hath falsified. Mark his words: "There be some standing here, who shall not taste of death." He says not, "who shall not die," but "who shall not taste of death." Not to taste of death, is not to feel the pains of it—not to taste its bitterness. In this sense was the same expression used by our Lord upon other occasions, as was, indeed, the more simple expression of not dying. "If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death." The expression is to be understood with reference to the intermediate state between death and the final judgment, in which the souls,

both of the righteous and the wicked, exist in a conscious state, the one comforted with the hope and prospect of their future glory,-the other mortified with the expectation of torment. The promise to the saints, that they shall never taste of death, is without limitation of time;—in the text, a time being set, until which the persons intended shall not taste of death, it is implied that then they shall taste it. The departure of the wicked into everlasting torment, is, in Scripture, called the second death. This is the death from which Christ came to save penitent sinners; and to this the impenitent remain obnoxious. The pangs and horrors of it will be such, that the evil of natural death, in comparison, may well be overlooked; and it may be said of the wicked, that they shall have no real taste of death till they taste it in the burning lake, from whence the smoke of their torment shall ascend for ever and ever. This is what our Lord insinuates in the alarming menace of the text;-this, at least, is the most literal exposition that the words will bear; and it connects them more than any other with the scope and occasion of the whole discourse. Whosoever," says our Lord, "will lose his life, shall find it,"-shall find, instead of the life he loses here, a better in the world to come; "and whosoever will save his life shall lose it,"-shall lose that life which alone is worth his care: "for what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" For there will come a day of judgment and retribution ;-the Son of man, he who now converses with you in a human form,-shall "come in the glory of the Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works." On them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, have sought for life and immortality-on them he shall bestow glory and happiness, hononr and praise; but shame and rebuke, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil. The purport of the discourse was to enforce a just contempt both of the enjoyments and

of the sufferings of the present life, from the consideration of the better enjoyments and of the heavier sufferings of the life to come; and because the discourse was occasioned by a fear which the disciples had betrayed of the sufferings of this world, for which another fear might seem the best antagonist,-for this reason, the point chiefly insisted on, is the magnitude of the loss to them who should lose their souls. To give this consideration its full effect, the hearers are told that there were those among themselves who stood in this dangerous predica ment. "There be some standing here, who shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom;" and then will they be doomed to endless sufferings, in comparison with which the previous pangs of natural death are nothing. "Flatter not yourselves that these threatenings will never be executed,--that none will be so incorrigibly bad as to incur the extremity of these punishments: verily, I say unto you, there are present, in this very assembly, there are persons standing here, who will be criminal in that degree, that they will inevitably feel the severity of vindictive justice,-persons who now perhaps hear these warnings with incredulity and contempt: but the time will come, when they will see the Son of man, whom they despised-whom they rejectedwhom they persecuted, coming to execute vengeance on them who have not known God, nor obeyed the gospel; and then will they be doomed to endless sufferings, in comparison with which the previous pangs of natural death are nothing."

It will be proper, however, to consider, whether, among the hearers of this Discourse, there might be any at whom it may be probable that our Lord should point so express a denunciation of final destruction.

"There are some standing here." The original words, according to the reading which our English translators seem to have followed, might be more exactly rendered"There are certain persons standing here;" where the ex

pressions certain persons hath just the same definite sense as a certain person, the force of the plural number being only that it is a more reserved, and, for that reason, a more alarming, way of pointing at an individual. Now, in the assembly to which our Lord was speaking, a certain person, it may well be supposed, was present, whom charity herself may hardly scruple to include among the miserable objects of God's final vengeance. The son of perdition, Judas the traitor, was standing there. Our Saviour's first prediction of his passion was that which : gave occasion to this whole discourse. It may reasonably be supposed, that the tragical conclusion of his life on earth was present to his mind, with all its horrid circumstances; and, among these, none was likely to make a more painful impression than the treason of his base disciple. His mind possessed with these objects, when the scene of the general judgment comes in view,-the traitor standing in his sight, his crime foreseen,-the sordid motives of it understood,—the forethought of the fallen apostle's punishment could not but present itself; and this drew from our divine instructor that alarming menace, which must have struck a chill of horror to the heart of every one that heard it, and the more because the particular application of it was not at the time understood. This was the effect intended. Our Lord meant to impress his audience with a just and affecting sense of the magnitude of those evils-the sharpness of those pains, which none but the ungodly shall ever feel, and from which none of the ungodly shall ever escape.

Nor in this passage only, but in every page of holy writ, are these terrors displayed, in expressions studiously adapted to lay hold of the imagination of mankind, and awaken the most thoughtless to such an habitual sense of danger as might be sufficient to overcome the most powerful allurements of vice. "The wicked are to go into outer darkness; there is to be weeping and gnashing of teeth; they are to depart into everlasting fire, prepared for the