than ever existed at any previous period of the Jewish nationality. There fore, the only true sense in which total abolition can be said to have been effected, is the Roman conquest of the Jews, as a separate, distinct, and independent nation. But that event took place previously-not subsequently -to the prophecy of Christ, here under investigation; and, therefore, yields no support to the plea that, in any degree, it verified the prediction. To urge the contrary is to apply Christ's prophecy to an event past before such a prophecy had been delivered. Still, this is the only event to which the terms-total abolition of the Jewish Polity-can be applied with any show of reason.

As to the argument built upon the similarity said to exist between expressions used by the ancient prophets and expressions which occur in Christ's predictions, now under notice,* it should be observed that each of the passages cited from the former has a meaning and tendency peculiar to itself; and not generic, as contended; and that the special predictions of the latter, in order truly to ascertain their meaning, should be judged of as they appear on the whole scope and intendment of the chapters to which they belong; and also as they were understood by Christ's apostlesMatthew, Mark, Peter, James, John, and Paul;—all of whom, except Paul, were eye and ear witnesses of the predictions themselves, as well as of the tone and manner of their utterance. This is indispensable in order to determine the real meaning of these predictions. Further: in instituting a comparison between these predictions and any expressions of the ancient prophets, it should be noticed that, first, those uttered by Christ receive a precise and definite signification, by their being an answer to a special question put to him by his assembled apostles; thus:-"What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world ?"-Secondly, that all his statements must, in fairness, be held to bear upon those terrible events to which the question refers.-Thirdly, that they do obviously bear upon them, and cannot be made to refer to anything else, without doing violence to the language in which these statements are made.—Lastly, that none of the passages, cited from the ancient prophets, contain anything correspondent to many passages in Christ's predictions respecting stars falling from heaven,-the gathering of the elect from the four winds of heaven,— the occurrence of these events during the generation then existing,-and the repeated injunction to watch and pray. Besides: the whole of the argument built upon the similarity of the expressions used by Christ, in this prediction, to expressions employed by the ancient prophets, is founded upon the supposition that the latter did not prophesy the near approach of the end of the world and the day of judgment;—a supposition, the correctness of which is neither borne out by evidence, nor admitted by those who contend that Christ prophesied the near approach of these events. The premises, therefore, not being granted, the conclusions drawn from them cannot be admitted as sound.

Again: the explanation given of the following remarkable portion of Christ's prophecy is, by no means satisfactory, when closely examined.— "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of man be." To imagine that here he means

pp. 34, 35.

his coming simply "to execute temporal judgment upon the Jews, in the destruction of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Jewish Polity, both religious and civil," is not only quite gratuitous, but contrary to the whole tenour of the prophecy. If Christ, in his prediction, means that he himself was to come to execute temporal judgment upon the Jews, he must come to execute it in the manner he predicts; otherwise the prediction is not verified. He must come himself with angels and trumpet-sounding;the elect must be gathered;-the sun and moon must darken;-the stars must fall from heaven. A prophecy must be taken as it stands,—in all its length and breadth of expression, and according to its natural and obvious meaning :—not in detached and mangled portions. Still, it is in the latter manner that Christian writers, most generally, attempt at showing the truth of the Jewish predictions. It is wonderful to observe how much more freedom they take with a Book which they profess to consider of Divine Inspiration than they would dare take with any other book, ancient or modern.

The evidence adduced from the writings of the apostlest to show that Christ's predictions refer solely to the destruction of Jerusalem, is also liable to grave objections. The argument advanced here is founded on the assumption that all the Epistles were written before the destruction of Jerusalem. But the dates, as well as the authorship, of these productions are quite uncertain. We have nothing like a positive proof as to when, or by whom they were written. The pious frauds of ancient times, when whole books on Christian subjects were forged, have made these matters entirely conjectural. The dates usually assigned to them, by Christian. writers, wholly depend upon popish tradition;-a foundation too sandy, upon which to build an argument, and draw conclusions therefrom.Besides the admission made‡ that many passages, in the apostolic writings, refer to the last day of judgment, nullifies much of the argument built upon the writings of the apostles. For the similarity of the passages admitted to refer to the end of the world, to those denied to refer to the near approach of this event, is so striking as to furnish, at least, a strong presumptive proof that all of them refer to it. Such for example are,-1 Cor. xv. 51, 52. 1 Thess. iv. 15-17. The explanation given of the use of the pronoun-we, in these passages, is by no means sufficient.§ Nor is the argument used therein conclusive-that Paul did not expect to see the end of the world in his lifetime. In the last passage, just cited, he uses the first person plural four times; and the second person plural-ye or you --six times. To place, beyond doubt, Paul's intention to confine his observations to the then existing Thessalonian believers, he uses the emphatic pronoun-yourselves (avro) in the context. He tells them to "comfort one another with these words;" namely, the words he had just written to them; and he appeals to their own perfect knowledge of Christ's sudden coming in judgment,-" as a thief in the night." Hence all the efforts made here, with the aid of the ingenious passage from Horne, utterly fail to divest these expressions of their pointed personality to then existing believers. Surely, those who received these Epistles, and for whose comfort they were written and sent,-who knew Paul personally, and had often § p. 48. || 1 Thess. v. 2.

See pp. 28, 46. † p. 41. et seq. + pp. 46, 47.

heard from his lips the enforcement of his Epistles, behoved to know the import thereof infinitely better than people of a distant nation, living nearly two thousand years afterwards. Surely the Thessalonians were better judges than people of the present age are, whether Paul, in his first Epistle to them, taught that the end of the world and the final judgment were close at hand. They understood him so to teach. Nor does Paul, in his second Epistle, say that he had not so represented these events. He only tells them not to be shaken in mind or troubled. And as a reason for not to be so troubled, he assures them that the day of Christ was at hand.*

It may, by some, be regretted that the evidence adduced to show that Christ's predictions now under notice refer solely to the destruction of Jerusalem is thus found liable to so many important exceptions. But the observant reader will perceive that no pains have been spared to bring forward the best evidence obtainable, with a view to establish that point; and will, in candour, admit that its weakness does not proceed from any want of honest dealing on the part of the writer.

SECTION II.- -THE STRENGTH OF THE EVIDENCE ADDUCED TO SHOW THAT

CHRIST PREDICTED THE END OF THE WORLD AND THE FINAL JUDGMENT TO TAKE PLACE WITHIN THE LIFETIME OF THE GENERATION OF MEN THEN LIVING.

It is now proposed to examine the validity of the arguments adduced in proof that Christ predicted the end of the world and the day of judgment as events then just at hand. With regard to the frantic mood into which it is said the ancient Jewish prophets wrought themselves when prophesying.† this does not cast any reflection upon Christ as a prophet. He was, it is true, a Jewish prophet, but no proof has been adduced that he indulged in the "divine frenzy" in which other prophets did, so as to identify himself with them on this point. In delivering his predictions, he appears to have been much more temperate than the old school of prophets.

Again as to the remarks made with the view to show that the Hebrews were not acquainted with the heathen notion that the soul, or what the Greeks called Vuxn, existed separately after death, it can scarcely be said that the arguments advanced on this topic are sufficiently conclusive to establish the point in question. For although the Hebrews and Greeks

Dr. Priestley, however, remarks that the doctrine of the distinction between soul and body as two different substances, which he says was of oriental origin, does not appear to have ever been adopted by the generality of the Jews, and perhaps not even by the more learned and philosophical of them, such as Josephus, till after the time of our Saviour; though Philo, and some others, who resided in Egypt, might have adopted that tenet in an earlier period. Though a distinction is made in Scripture between the principle or seat of thought in men, and the parts which are destined to other functions; and in the New Testament that principle may sometimes be signified by the term soul, yet there is no instance, either in the Old or New Testament of this soul being supposed to be in one place and the body in another. They are always conceived to go together, so that the perceptive and thinking power could not, in fact, be considered by the sacred writers as any other than a property of a living man, and therefore, as what ceased, of course, when the man was dead, and could not be revived but with the revival of the

had no name for a soul or spirit but that which signified wind or life; and although the doctrine of the existence of a soul is not taught in the Old

body. Accordingly, we have no promise of any reward, or any threatening of punishment after death, but that which is represented as taking place at the general resurrection.And it is observable that this is never, in the Scriptures, called, as with us, the resurrection of the body, (as if the soul, in the meantime, was in some other place,) but always the resurrection of the dead, that is, of the man."-Hist. Corruption of Christianity, vol. i. part v. Introduction.

"In the second and third centuries those who believed that there was a soul distinct from the body supposed that after death it went to some place under ground." We are however informed that the Christians in Arabia, as late as the third century," maintained that the soul perishes with the body, but that it will be raised to life again, by the power of God, at the resurrection. It is said, however, that they were induced to abandon this opinion by the arguments and influence of Origen." (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. c. 37.) "Whenever the Jews received the opinion of the separate existence of the soul, it was in the imperfect manner above mentioned. For they held that there was a place below the earth which they called Paradise, where the souls of good men remained; and they distinguished this from the upper Paradise, where they were to be after the resurrection. The Christians borrowed their opinions from the Jews, and supposed that Hades, or the place of the souls, was divided into two mansions, in one of which the wicked were in grief and torment, and in the other the godly were in joy and happiness, both of them expecting the general resurrection. (Hist. Apostles' Creed, p. 198, &c.)— Into this general receptacle of souls it was the opinion of the early Fathers that Christ descended to preach; they supposing these to be the spirits in prison mentioned by the apostle Peter. (1 Pet. iii. 19.). Others, however, thought that our Saviour preached so effectually as to empty the whole of the limbus patrum, (for so also they called the precincts within which these ancient patriarchs were confined,) and carried 'all the souls with him into heaven. (Burnet on the Articles, p. 71.) But this must have been a late opinion, because it was not supposed in the time of the Fathers that the souls of good men in general would be with Christ, and enjoy what was called then the beatific vision of God, till the resurrection. This opinion is clearly stated by Novatian, for he says, -Nor are the regions below the earth void of powers (potestatibus) regularly disposed and arranged; for there is a place whither the souls of the righteous and of the wicked are led, expecting the sentence of a future judgment,' (De Trinitate, cap. 1. p. 5.) This was evidently the uniform opinion of Christian writers for many centuries after this time. The article concerning the descent of Christ into hell, in what we call the Apostles' Creed, is not mentioned by any writer before Rufinus, who found it in his own church at Aquileia, but it was not then known at Rome, or in the East. At first, also, the expression was karaxwvia, but in the Creed of Athanasius, made in the sixth or seventh century, it was changed into Hades. And even then, it seems to have been put for burial, there being no other word expressing the burial of Christ in that Creed. (Burnet on the Articles, p. 69.) In the declension of the Greek, and chiefly in the Latin tongue, the term Hades or Hell began to be applied to the mansion of wicked souls; some of the Fathers imagining Hades to be in the centre of the earth, others under the earth, and some being uncertain about its situation."-Dr. Priestley's History of the Corruption of Christianity, vol. 1. part v. sec. 1.

It is difficult to ascertain to what particular part of Josephus's works Dr. Priestley alludes, as stated at the commencement of this Note, since he cites none. It may not be amiss, however, just to mention here that the writer is well acquainted with the views advanced of Hades, the soul, judgment, &c., in that ingenious forgery calledJosephus's Discourse to the Greeks concerning Hades;-a production fabricated, apparently, some time between the third and seventh century, replete with touches of Christian doctrines, and containining such expressions as-"God the Word,"-" to whom the Father hath committed al judgment," and "whom we call Christ;"-" unquenchable fire;"" eternal punishment;"-" a worm that uever dieth;" -"eternal life;"—"incorruptible and rever-fading kingdom; '—" heavenly kingdom;"-" neither eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him;" (compare 1 Cor. ii. 9.)—“in whatsoever ways I shall find you, in them shall I judge you entirely; so cries the end," &c. Several other Christian phrases might be added. When such a production is found to be attributed to

L

Testament at all, while it is but very seldom and faintly alluded to,—and that in very questionable language,-in the New Testament, yet the Hebrews, in common with other nations, had their Hades, in which it was thought the souls (or some things which they called yuxai) of both good and bad men were shut up. The Jews also had their Paradise, in common with the Persians and other nations, apparently for the abode of the yuxa (souls) of the blessed. This, however, by no means affects the main argument, in which it is only collaterally used.

The mass of evidence adduced to show that Christ predicted the End of the World and the Day of the Last Judgment, as events which were positively to take place during the then existent generation of men,* is, however, of a most conclusive character. So numerous, clear, and definite are the proofs on this point, and so strongly do the many passages cited corroborate one another, that they can leave no doubt in the mind of any one who will candidly examine them, that Christ predicted these events in the most distinct and unequivocal terms that language can furnish. The overwhelming evidence advanced on this side of the argument, both as to the number of proofs and their individual strength, dwarfs into insignificance the arguments advanced to show that it was only the destruction of Jerusalem that Christ prophesied. The latter derive their principal strength from words found in Luke, which are not corroborated by any other passages; but the former is supported by the whole tenour of the Gospels and Epistles. Further: those words in Luke have been clearly shown to mean events which were to befall Jerusalem, either immediately before, or. at the destruction of the world.† The near approach of the end of the world and the day of judgment, with their supposed consequent effects, were evidently the grand theme of Christ and his apostles. These formed the very substance of their discourses. We find them, therefore, things not accidentally mentioned, but treated upon deliberately, frequently, and pointedly, throughout whole chapters. The doctrines based upon them pervade the whole of the New Testament,- -a fact which shows that they were events firmly believed by the vulgar, and universally inculcated by

Josephus, it makes one suspect that some of the other productions which pass under his name are forgeries. and makes all the works attributed to him unreliable. How fruitful of device must Pious Fraud have been, to use such Gospel expressions as the foregoing, and yet at the same time pretend, in the name of Josephus-a Jew, not a Christianto write to the pagan Greeks, speaking of transmigration, of the doctrines of Plato, of philosophy, of the inspired Jewish prophets, &c., by way of disguise. This forgery, doubtless, proved very useful when quoted to show that Josephus-a renowned character -bore testimony to the truth of the Christian doctrines; and the forger must have largely imbibed the spirit of Paul, who asks-" If the truth of God hath more abounded through MY LIE unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?" (Rom. iii. 7.) If any one wishes to know the real meaning of this apostolic avowal, let him ask the pious and learned Casaubon, who says (as quoted in Lardner, vol. iv. p. 524.)—" It greatly affects me to see the numbers who, in the earliest times of the church, considered it an excellent thing to lend to heavenly truth the help of their own inventions, in order that the new doctrine might be more readily allowed by the wise among the Gentiles.These officious lies (officiosa hæc mendacia) they said, were invented for a good end.— From this source, doubtless, sprang nearly innumerable books." Or let him consult Mosheim, (Eccles. Hist. vol. 1. p. 189.) who says, that "it was an almost universally adopted maxim that it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie, when, by such means, the interests of the church might be promoted."

See p. 64. et seq.

† pp. 96-116.