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This passage, Bloomfield thinks, may be reckoned among the passages of the apostle, "hard to be understood," mentioned by Peter, on which more light is to be desired, though little to be expected. Upon the whole, he remarks, we must be content with discerning the general sense, and not stumble at some confusion of metaphor. Dr. Pye Smith has, with his usual felicity of expression, fairly, we think, represented the allusion and sense of the apostle. The great deliverance of the gospel is here represented, he conceives, by two figures in conjunction, the cancelling of a debt (which was anciently signified by driving a nail through the bond or deed of obligation), and the emancipating of captives, by the conquest of their oppressors, and a triumph over them. It must also be brought to mind, he remarks, that the ceremonial ordinances of the Mosaic law were a perpetual memorial of sin, as involving exposure to punishment, and of the inability of a sinner to effect his own deliverance; so that their abolition amounted to a declaration that an effectual provision was now made for the pardon of sin by the righteous Judge, and for the everlasting deliverance of those who had been the slaves of sin, and the captives of wicked spirits.*

"Discourses on the Sacrifice of Christ," etc., p. 215.

THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE

THESSALONIANS.

CHAPTER V.

"But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you."-Ver. 1.

THE historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire avers that the apostle conceived that the day of judgment was actually very near at hand Locke says, "The apostle looked on the coming of Christ," to judge all mankind at the last day, “as not far off;" Macknight, who is one of the most strenuous advocates for the application of the whole of the fifth chapter to the day of judgment, remarks that the apostle's description is the more affecting, "that the verbs are all in the present time—' so cometh' - 'sudden destruction cometh;' representing the certainty and instantaneousness of its coming." So also Doddridge and others. We, however, would suggest that "the coming," and "the day of the Lord," are expressions which were in frequent use, in ancient prophecy, to denote the near approach of some great and remarkable temporal calamity. This epistle was confessedly written a little before the destruction of Jerusalem, and our Lord had particularly predicted the accomplishment of this awful event (Matt. xxiv), and had pointed out the signs of its approach, that they might watch for it, and be fully apprised of it. Now, the presump

tion is, even previous to a critical enquiry, that the apostle had his eye upon that event. In the twentyfourth of Matthew, our Lord not only expressly predicted that the destruction of Jerusalem should be in that generation, but that it should come upon the Jewish nation in a sudden and unexpected manner, when they were engaged in all the occupations of human life, and busied in transactions which plainly indicated that they expected no such awful calamity to come upon them (ver. 27, etc). As they were thus apprised of the suddenness of that awful calamity, so they were also told, that though it was to be in that generation, yet the precise time of its approach was known to none; and for that reason, especially, they were directed to watch for it (ver. 44): "Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh."

Now, it is deserving of particular notice, that Paul, in this epistle, dwells, in a very particular and impressive manner, upon the Thessalonians being fully apprised of the near approach of the day of the Lord. He tells them that he had no need to write to them about it-that they knew perfectly that the day of the Lord would so come, as a thief in the night; that they were not in darkness, that that day should overtake them as a thief-that they were all the children of light and of the day; and that, finally, they were not of the night, nor of darkness; and that, therefore, they were not to sleep as others, in careless security, as not apprehending nor expecting the near approach of any calamity, but to watch and be sober. So again, when he says, "They," that is, those who were in this state of careless security, "should say peace and safety, and that then sudden destruction would come upon them as upon a woman

P

with child, and that they should not escape."

was hardly possible to make use of language more appropriate to the near approach of some great national calamity.

When, therefore, the apostle says, "Now, concerning the times and the seasons," we think it is in a high degree probable, independent of any critical examination of the meaning of the phrase in Acts i. 7, to which his language is generally referred, that he was about to describe-not the end of the world, or the general judgment, mentioned in the close of the preceding chapter-but the destruction of Jerusalem. There is so striking a reference to some great national calamity, that it has been thought, even by those who imagine the apostle to have been treating of the day of judgment, that he interweaves with it a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem. But Dr. Benson has very judiciously observed, that" particular expressions, in any author, may be variously applied, when detached from their connection; the current of the apostle's discourse here, however, is concerning only one grand and signal day."*

* See Nisbett on "The Triumphs of Christianity," pp. 179–

192.

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