66 not a possession of the holy sepulchre." Its condition still, is thus stated by a recent traveller. "At every step, coming out of the city, the heart is reminded of that prophecy, accomplished to the letter, Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles.' All the streets are wretchedness; and the houses of the Jews more especially, the people who once held a sceptre on this mountain of holiness, are as dunghills." "No expression could have been invented more descriptive of the visible state of Jerusalem, than this single phrase, trodden down."" "Not a creature is to be seen in the streets," says another traveller, creature at the gates, except now and then a peasant gliding through the gloom, concealing under his garments the fruits of his labor, lest he should be robbed of his hard earnings by the rapacious soldier. The only noise heard from time to time in the city is the galloping of the steed of the desert." "The Jerusalem of sacred history is in fact no more. vestige remains of the capital of David and Solomon; not a monument of Jewish times is standing. The very course of the walls is changed, and the boundaries of the ancient city are become doubtful.” Not a Thus, during a period of seventeen hundred and sixty years have the captivities and dispersions and oppressions of the Jewish people, together with the desolate condition of their city and temple, most signally attested the prophetic character of our Lord. * Newton on Prophecy, vol. 2, p. 319-334. ↑ Jowett's Researches, p. 200. Modern Traveller, Palestine, p. 75. Chateaubriand. And shall we not hence be confident that what remains of his prediction will be accomplished? Will not the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled? Will not Jerusalem continue, until then, to be trodden down of the Gentiles? And then will it not cease to be subject to them? And does not the expression of the prophecy imply that it will be again rebuilt and possessed by the Jews in the day when "all Israel shall be saved?" "For what reason can we believe, that though they are dispersed among all nations, yet by a constant miracle they are kept distinct from all, but for the further manifestation of God's purposes towards them? The prophecies have been accomplished to the greatest exactness in the destruction of their city, and its continuing still subject to strangers; in the dispersion of their people, and their living still separate from all people; and why should not the remaining parts of the same prophecies be as fully accomplished in their restoration at the proper season, when the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled ?"* 13. We have now exhibited the exact fulfilment of all the particulars of this remarkable prophecy, with one exception. The Lord specified the time of those great events which he so minutely foretold. "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." Forty years had not elapsed from the date of this prediction, before all things referred to in it had taken place. And now let me add but a few words in conclusion. * No charge can be brought against the prophecy which we have been exhibiting, on the score of obscurity or ambiguousness of expression. It is expressed in the plainest terms, and admits of but one interpretation. Nothing can be said in detraction from its claim to inspiration, on the ground of its being general in its expression. It is singularly particular, as well as comprehensive. Nothing can be said in denial of the complete correspondence between these various predictions and the history of. the times and places to which they refer. We have drawn the evidence from sources which cannot be suspected of any partiality to the prophetic character of Jesus. The History of the Wars of the Jews, by Josephus the Jewish priest; the Annals, by Tacitus a Roman consul; and the History of the Decline and. Fall of the Roman Empire, by Gibbon the English sceptic, are all the vouchers we require. What then is the alternative to which the student of prophecy is reduced? He must either acknowledge that Jesus was possessed of the spirit of genuine prophecy, or that he was so sagacious as to be able to foretell all these particulars when no one else could see any sign of them, or that the gospels containing these predictions were written after the events. The first the sceptic is resolved at all hazards to deny; the second he cannot suppose; the last he must assert, or give up his cause. For the same reason, therefore, that the heathen Porphyry, when he could not deny the strict correspondence between the prophecies of Daniel and the subsequent history of Egypt and Syria, rather than confess that Daniel was a prophet, contradicted every principle of historical testimony for the sake of pretending that he must have written after the occurrence of what he foretold; so have some modern Porphyries been driven to assert that the evangelists who relate this prophecy of Jerusalem, must have written after the city was destroyed.* I need not say that the only reason pretended to in support of this assertion, is the very thing we have been laboring to show the strict agreement between the prophecy and the event. Their argument is nei ther more nor less than the following: If these words were written before the destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus was a genuine prophet; but we will not believe him to have been a genuine prophet; therefore these words were not written before the destruction of Jerusalem. A conclusion as shameless as it is senseless-as opposite to the faith of all history as to the rules of all sound criticism, and the opinion of the learned of all ages. It shows the strength of the argument from prophecy, as well as the infatuated obstinacy with which the human heart is capable of resisting whatever would bind it to the obedience of Christ. But let us not forget that the destruction of Jerusalem, with its signs and tribulations, is set in the Scriptures as a type of an unspeakably more awful and momentous event-THE END OF THE WORLD. A day cometh when "the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall *Voltaire. Watson's Ap. for Bible, p. 169. fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."* When that day shall arise on the world, knoweth no man. One thing we know, that it will find us just as death shall find us. Death, to each of us, will be virtually the coming of the Son of Then our eternal state will be sealed. Therefore doth wisdom utter her voice: O ye sons of men, prepare to meet your God; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh. Watch; walk as children of light. Embrace the promises of the gospel, and live by faith in Christ Jesus the Lord. "Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing." man. * Matt. 24:29-31. |