for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee." In a solemn prayer to God, he predicts his own death as a thing immediately to take place. "Father, the hour is come. that thy Son may glorify thee."

Glorify thy Son, “And now I am

no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee.”

He foretold the effect which his death, his resurrection, and ascension would produce upon his followers. His death would make them profoundly sad, and humble them before a scoffing and triumphant world. "Verily, verily I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice." But his resurrection was to reanimate and reassure them. "And ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy." "And ye now, therefore, have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you."

He told them that it was necessary that he should go away, and be removed from the earth, for till he was taken away from their earthly hopes, they could not understand his religion nor their own mission; or, in his phraseology, receive "the Spirit of truth." "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you..

When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all the truth."

This prophecy was literally and immediately fulfilled. Fifty days from Christ's crucifixion saw an

entire change in his disciples. Truth bursting upon their minds from the cross, the tomb, the resurrection, and ascension of Christ, transformed them from worldly, ambitious, timid, unintellectual, and obscure men, into courageous, firm, energetic teachers of a spiritual faith, and from the selfish seekers of earthly power to the founders of the kingdom of God.

DISCOURSE XIX.

THE RETURN OF CHRIST TO THE EARTH.

NOW WE BESEECH YOU, BRETHREN, BY THE COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND BY OUR GATHERING TOGETHER UNTO HIM, THAT YE BE NOT SOON SHAKEN IN MIND, OR BE TROUBLED, NEITHER BY SPIRIT, NOR BY WORD, NOR BY -LETTER, AS FROM US, AS THAT THE DAY OF CHRIST IS AT HAND. LET NO MAN DECEIVE YOU BY ANY MEANS: FOR THAT DAY SHALL NOT COME, EXCEPT THERE COME A FALLING AWAY FIRST, AND THAT MAN OF SIN BE REVEALED, THE SON OF PERDITION. — 2 Thessalonians ii. 1-3.

THE next prophecy of Christ, in the order of time, after those relating to his death, his resurrection and ascension, and the commencement of the preaching of his religion by his Apostles, was his prediction of its extension to the Gentiles. This is the more remarkable, as it was wholly contradictory to the deepseated prejudices of the Jewish nation, and the expectations of the Apostles themselves concerning the kingdom of the Messiah. They had been educated to expect a Messiah who should conquer, but not one who should convert, the world. So wholly averse were their minds from this arrangement, that, notwithstanding Christ's final commission to them was,

"Go, teach all nations," nothing of the kind was done. or attempted by them for the first ten years. The bitterness of the Jewish feeling upon this point may be - learned from Paul's defence of himself at Jerusalem, when he was apprehended under suspicion of introducing heathens into the temple. He tells them that Christ sent him to preach to the heathen: " And he said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live."

That the contempt of the Pagans for the Jews did not fall behind the hatred of the Jews for the Pagans, all contemporaneous literature bears witness. It was quite as improbable that a Jew should have been willing to impart the blessings of the Messiah's kingdom to the Gentiles, as that the Gentiles should have been willing to receive a religion from the Jews. And yet, under these circumstances, Christ prophesies," And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Nearly ten years passed away before the Gospel was preached to the heathen at all, and then it required a special miracle to instruct Peter, that he was no longer to call any man common or unclean, and the Holy Ghost poured out on Cornelius and his companions was the only thing which could convince him that God was no respecter of persons. The miraculous conversion of Paul, and his mission to the Gentiles, settled the question, and fulfilled the prophecy of Christ; for he himself preached the Gospel in nearly all the principal cities of the Roman empire.

Next are Christ's prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem, the ruin of the Jewish nation, and the close of the Mosaic dispensation as the religion recognized by God. The principal predictions relating to this event were uttered during his last visit to Jerusalem, and many of them within sight of the temple. "And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"

And

This question indicates the origin of the misapprehension under which the disciples afterwards labored as to futurity through their whole ministry. It contains two phrases which were equivocal, "the coming of Christ," and "the end of the world." The word. here rendered "world" had two meanings, as likewise the Hebrew word to which it corresponds. It means sometimes the material universe, but more often an age or a dispensation of religion. And the coming of Christ is used to indicate no less than four different epochs in the New Testament,- his assumption of his office, the preaching and establishment of his religion in the world, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the final consummation of all things, ending in the general judgment.

The establishment of Christ's religion in the world is called by him "his coming." When Jesus was