This case also furnishes an illustration of the real ground for alarm on the part of the unwatchful and unprepared, in view of the rapture of the saints. These Thessalonians were unfortunately led to think that the day of the Lord had come, and that they were left behind as having no part in the blessed gathering to the Lord in the air. The result was, that they were being driven to distraction. The very thought filled them with overwhelming anguish and dismay. And yet it was only an erroneous surmise-a mere peradventure, for which there was a bare possibility. But the hour is coming when what they but dimly imagined shall be sad reality to many. Though the unready and unsanctified may not see the dead arise, or the translated ones ascend, they will find it out afterwards. The truth in due time shall become manifest. And when the awful reality appears, that the day of the Lord is already come; that Jesus is present in the clouds; that the dead in Christ have been recalled from their tombs, and are with him in the heights; that the earnest, waiting, and watching ones, who have so mysteriously disappeared have gone with them like so many Enochs whom God hath translated; and that they are "left,"-left to take their portion with hypocrites and unbelievers-left to suffer the sorrows of the great tribulation, having lost their crowns and their part in the resurrection of the just :--alas! for the consternation and dismay which shall then take possession of them! NOTES ON 2 TIMOTHY III., IV. No. I. J. A. SEISS. STANDING as it were by the side of an open grave, ready to be offered up, and filled with that testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of prophecy, Paul the aged writes a last brief letter, primarily to his dearly beloved son Timothy, and through him to all who have ears to hear, in which epistle we find the weighty declaration, "This know, that in the last days grievous times shall present themselves ” (ἐνστήσονται). Ere further considering the meaning of the expression "the last days," I am enabled by the kindness of Mr. J. W. Bosanquet, F.R. A.S., Treasurer of the Society of Biblical Archæology, to lay before the readers of the RAINBOW a brief chronology of the Bible, extracted from a fuller one compiled by him. Mr. Bosanquet's labours in this very difficult field are well known to all scientific students of the subject; and his chronological articles in the learned Transactions of the Society are remarkable alike for great ability and research and for a most reverent and loving spirit towards the Bible,-a frame of mind from which it must be feared the greater portion of the lettered intellect of the age is now estranged. To give an illustration of variety of opinion in chronology: we find after comparing the systems of Usher, Creswell, Horne, Hales, the Rev, D. H. Haigh (an Assyrian scholar), Prof. Brandes (a German Assyriologist), Mr. Samuel Sharpe, the late lamented George Smith, and Mr. Bosanquet, that the date of a comparatively late event the accession of Rehoboam--is variously placed from B.C. 990 to 936. I must refer those who would further investigate Mr. Bosanquet's system to his works, and more especially to his researches into that exceedingly intricate portion of history treated of in the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel. Vide paper on "The Date of the Fall of Nineveh and the Beginning of the Reign of Nebuchadnezzar." (Trans. Soc. Bib. Archæol. ii., 147-148.) Also paper on the "Synchronous History of certain Kings of Assyria and Judah." (Ibid. iii. 1-82.) I.-CHRONOLOGY OF THE BIBLE. ANNO MUNDI. 1656 The Flood B.C. Creation of Man (Assyrian, Admu; Hebrew, Adam) 4035 2379 2008 Birth of Abraham 2027 2073 Call of Abraham, 70 Weeks before the giving of the Law (Acts vii. 2-5) 1962 2108 Birth of Isaac 1927 2133 Offering of Isaac, æt. 25; Covenant with Abraham (Gen. xxii. 18) 1902 2563 The Giving of the Law, 430 years after the Covenant (Gal. iii. 17) 1472 the building of the Second Temple 3053 Dedication of the Temple by Solomon, 70 Weeks before 3543 The Second Temple founded (Haggai. ii. 10-15) 4035 Beginning of the Christian Era 982 492 8-2 II. THE CYCLE OF THE JUBILEE FROM THE DEDICATION OF THE SECOND TEMPLE. Second Temple dedicated in the sixth year of Darius, in association with the Xerxes (Ezra iii. 14, 15) Mr. Bosanquet also notices that from A.D. 630, when Mahomet formally set up his religion for the world at large (vide Muir, Life of Mahomet, iv. 168), and commenced his career of violence by the persecution of Arabian Jews, to A.D. 1965 is 1335 "days." (Cf. Dan. xii. 12.) The original does not necessarily imply periods of twentyfour hours, but more generally "periods" whose length might, in the abstract, correspond with that of either days or years. The ancient belief that the Mosaic Days of Creation were intended to adumbrate ages in the world's history, and that six working periods of one thousand years were to be crowned by the Divine Sabbatismos (Heb. iv. 9; cf. 2 Pet. iii. 8; Apoc. xx. 4), is doubtless familiar to the readers of the RAINBOW, and certainly seems to be in perfect accordance with the comments of St Paul on Gen. ii. 2. In the Epistle of Barnabas this view is asserted absolutely: "Consider what that signifies, he finished them in six days. The meaning of it is this: with him, one day is a thousand years. Therefore, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, shall all things [relating to the present dispensation] be accomplished. And what is that he saith, And he rested the seventh day. He meaneth this: that when his Son shall come and abolish the season of the Wicked One, and judge the ungodly; then he shall gloriously rest on that seventh day." (Barnabas xiii. 4, 6.) To quote also the beautiful words of Augustine at the close of his great work: "Certainly that city [the New Jerusalem] shall have no greater joy than the celebration of the grace of Christ, who redeemed us by his blood. There shall be accomplished the words of the Psalm, Be still, and know that I am God.' There shall be the great Sabbath, which God celebrated amongst his first works, as it is written. We shall ourselves be the seventh day [i.e., its glories personified]. We shall have eternal leisure to see that he is God, for we shall be full of him when he shall be all in all. This Sabbath shall appear still more clearly if we count the ages as days, in accordance with the periods of time defined in Scripture, for that period will be found to be the seventh." (De Civitate Dei, xxii. 30.) The foregoing chronological considerations are worthy of attentive examination in any endeavour to consider the present position in time of the Church of Christ; and as the apostle in the passage before us undoubtedly refers to the last days of the present dispensation, the period of the proclamation of the good news by human agency unaccompanied by supernatural displays, the period during which the church is being slowly gathered out of the world, the age of faith as opposed to that of sight, they may aid us in arriving at some conclusion whether we are now living in the last days, or upon the verge of them, or not. Let us next proceed to an analysis of the phrase "in the last days" (¿v oxárais épais); and here, as will speedily be observed, considerable caution is required. The expression is not the equivalent of the "after times" (vorépois kaupois) of 1 Tim. iv. 1. The last days" are the closing portion of the "after times." It is altogether distinct from the period mentioned in Heb. i. 2, the exact meaning of which passage is somewhat lost in the Authorised Version. The statement of the Apostle there is, "God having spoken to the fathers by the [Hebrew] prophets, at the end of these [i.e., the prophetical] days (Éπ' ÉσxÚTOV Twν iμeρur тOUтwv) has spoken to us by his Son;" or, as we read elsewhere, "The prophets were until John." The expression, "In the last days," is however used by St. Peter in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost when quoting the prophecy of Joel respecting the signs and wonders which would immediately precede "the day of Yahveh" (Joel ii. 28-32), or Jehovah, a prophecy which is applied by the apostle as adumbrating the extraordinary events accompanying the First Advent, although not to be fulfilled exhaustively until the Second. In the last days therefore, not only will people speak under Divine inspiration (not predict) as at Pentecost, but the ordinary course of things, these "laws of nature," about which we now hear so much, and the regularity of whose action supplies the mocker of prophecy with no small portion of his gibes (cf. 2 Pet. iii. 4), will be invaded by portentous alterations. (Matt. xxiv. 29; Acts ii. 19, 20.) Again, we find another expression in 1 Pet. i. 20, where we read that Christ was manifested "at the latter time" (En toxάTwv Twv Xpórwr (ἐπ' ἐσχάτων τῶν χρόνων equivalent to ἐπ' εσχατου του χρόνου), i.e., of the then history of the world; just as at present 1877 is the last year of the world's history. The same Apostle tells us that Christ's people are preserved "through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (v kaιpy koxárw, 1 Pet. i. 5). Of this "last time," when salvation is ready to be revealed by the Second Advent of the Saviour, the "last days" form a portion. In this "last time (ἐσχάτῳ χρόνῳ, Jude 18, χρονῳ = καιρῷ) shall be the “mockers (Eunaikтa), translated "scoffers" in 2 Pet. iii. 3, who ridicule the doctrine of the Second Advent; both apostles use the same word. These mockers act ἐπ' ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν= ἐν εσχάταις ἡμέραις, " in the last days," in which also wealth ill-acquired shall be marvellously accumulated. (Jas. v. 3.) R. BROWN, JUN., F.A.S. We praise thee for thy word of light Whilst, through the pilgrimage of faith, We praise thee for thy priceless gift, We praise thee for the plan profound O God most wonderful! thy praise We shall resume the song. THE REJECTION OF CHRIST. WHAT was the real cause of the rejection of Christ by the Jews. as a nation, and how was it that they were so blind to the truth? After a seventy years' captivity they had returned to the land of their fathers, and their long exile had burned into their souls, as it were, one great and glorious lesson,-hatred of idolatry; at least outward idolatry. One is the more struck, therefore, with the fact of their rejection of the Messiah, and at first quite puzzled to know why their rigid adherence to their Law, was so unproductive of good results. I can only come to the conclusion that though the seventy years' captivity had driven out the demon of external idolatry it had been quite ineffectual in expelling the internal idolatry of the heart. For the accomplishment of the former seventy years had sufficed; for the eradication of the latter two thousand have not as yet been enough. This is, to my mind, a clear proof that the great controversy which God has with his creatures is necessarily a long process, because it is the heart that has to be touched. Now with respect to the Jews I think our Lord's words. were perfectly true. "The last state of that man is worse than the first." In Milman's History of the Jews we find the following very remarkable and very able statement: "This was but one indication of that singular alteration in the national character of the Jews which displayed itself after their return from the captivity. The loss of that which had been the life of the religion, the temple service, with its offerings and processions and music, may have acted more powerfully even than the service itself, on multitudes who felt the |