thee one stone npon another, because thou knewest not the day of thy visitation." As the city of God, Jerusalem perished, never again to be restored. At the present day, nearly 2000 years since this desolation took place, it is only the wreck, the shadow of departed greatness. As the city of God it is found no more at all. The Jew exists there on sufferance; contending sects of Christians squabble about petty differences; and the Turk, the haughty master of the spot, worships Mahomet on the very altar of Jehovah. 99 There it is, "thrust down with violence,' "found no more at all." "Harpers 1 and musicians, and pipers and trumpeters," no more pealing their hallelujahs along the aisles of God's holy house; "no craftsman, of whatsoever craft," working silk and purple hangings for the veil. The "voice of the bridegroom2 and of the bride," hushed and still. The deep and pathetic words, so often repeated here, "No more at all," gathering an intense and awful meaning from their stern reality. Where the Jew was lord and prince he is now servant and slavewhere he was king and priest, he is "the offscouring of all things unto this day." His city perished, and has not been rebuilt. This, I confidently affirm, can only be said of the Jew and 1 "The voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee." This refers to the musicians employed in the service of the temple. Josephus relates, "The harpers also, and the singers of hymns, came out with their instruments of music, and begged the multitude not to provoke the Romans to carry off these sacred treasures." Lib. ii. cap. 15. 2 "The voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee." Compare the language of the warning cry of one of Christ's witnesses: A voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people." (Bell. Jud. lib. vi. cap. 5.) "And the light of a candle shall shine no more in thee." Compare Matt. xxv. 1. Where lamps are carried by the bridal party to meet the bridegroom. Jerusalem.1 "A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea: saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all." 1 "Dispersi, palabundi, et cœli et soli sui extorres vagantur per orbem sine homine [nomine], sine Deo rege, quibus nec advenarum jure terram patriam saltem vestigio salutare conceditur." Tert. Apol. 20. 390 LECTURE XVI. THE COMING OF CHRIST. SEVENTH TRUMPET. REV. xiv. 14-20. 14. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of mau, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. 15. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice, to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. 16. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. 17. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. 18. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. 19. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. 20. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs. SEVENTH VIAL. REV. xix. 11-21. 11. And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. 12. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. 13. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called the Word of God. 14. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. 15. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 16. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. 17. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; 18. That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. 19. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. 20. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. 21. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth; and all the fowls were filled with their flesh. In our last lecture we entered at some length into the much disputed question of Great Babylon. We showed, and I trust successfully, that great city to have been neither Rome Pagan nor Rome Papal, but Jerusalem. Indeed, when it is remembered that only one city is spoken of in the Apocalypse as about to experience the wrath of God, and that city is defined by such terms as "That great city"—"The holy city"-" The beloved city"-" The city to be trodden down of the Gentiles" -"The great city where also our Lord was crucified" "That great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth" (Judæa)—and when to this is added the complete and magnificent confirmation of the fall of that great city from the pen of the only man capable of giving such an account, who says of that memorable siege, that "during that time nothing was done which escaped his knowledge," it would seem as if the Providence of God had so heaped up irrefragable testimony that no stand could possibly be made against it. It is not a little remarkable that before the vision of this great city is given to St. John, he is "carried away in the Spirit into the wilderness," 1 (a sufficiently clear intimation that a 1 Compare “Τότε ὁ ̓Ιησοῦς ἀνήχθη εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ὑπὸ τοῦ Πνεύματος.” -Matt. iv. 1. communication connected with Judæa and Jerusalem is about to be vouchsafed unto him) and there he sees the woman sitting on the scarlet-coloured Beast whose desolation he so minutely and so graphically predicts. Now when the symbol of Pagan Rome was presented to the mind of the same Apostle, it is said that "he stood upon the sand of the sea, (the sea being constantly used in Scripture to denote the heathen world) and saw a Beast coming up out of the sea having seven heads and ten horns." In the present instance the vision relates to Judæa and Jerusalem, and therefore he is most appropriately "carried away in the Spirit into the wilderness." But not to recapitulate the evidence adduced in the preceding chapter, I shall merely answer the objection which might be urged against the view now taken of Great Babylon, that she is not so utterly fallen as she is represented in this description. It is true" wild beasts of the forest" do not dwell on the site of Jerusalem as on the site of ancient Babylon, and she is not literally "the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." In one sense, her fall does not come up to the imagery borrowed from the fall of ancient Babylon, although she was as utterly destroyed at that period; and, indeed, I have had to answer the silly objection, that because in a city of 30,000 inhabitants, such as Jerusalem now is, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride might be heard from time to time, therefore she did not fall. It is as the city of God that she is "fallen, is fallen." It is as the dwelling-place of Jehovah that she is "found no more at all.” It is as the metropolis of the Jewish nation that she is "thrust down with violence." It is as "the joy of the whole earth" that her "smoke rises up for ever and ever." At the date and age of the Apocalypse she was a heap of ruins; for Terentius Rufus, the Roman officer left in charge of Jerusalem, ploughed up the foundations of the temple, according to the prophecy of Micah1—“Zion shall be ploughed as a field;"2 and no desolation could possibly be more com 1 Micah, iii. 12. 2 Pausanias, who wrote A. D. 180, speaks of a monument of Queen Helena at Jerusalem, which city an emperor of the Romans destroyed to the foundations: « Ελενῆς δὲ γυναίκος ἐπιχωρίας τάφος ἐστὶν ἐν πόλει Σολύμοις, ἣν ἐς ἔδαφος κατέβαλεν ὁ 'Ρωμαίων βασιλεύς.” — Paus. viii. cap. 16. |