" that war against the Romans, in which that city,

and the temple in it, were utterly destroyed: "and Suetonius saith the same thing. The Pro"phecies of Daniel and other Prophets of the "Old Testament having not only spoken of "the righteousness, glory, and bliss of the "kingdom of the Messiah, but determined His

appearance to the very time when it happened,

gave just reason for this expectation; and for 66 EIGHTY YEARS before Christ's birth, the whole "house of Israel were big thereof for so long "Anna the Prophetess, being actuated by it, had "attended at the Temple in fasting and prayer to "wait His appearance. And, therefore, for so "long a time these Prophecies, and the received "interpretations of them, being much talked of "through all Judea with a view to the speedy "completion of them, especially after Pompey "had subjected that country to the Roman yoke, "the same expectations of their being speedily

"of the dispersion, wherever they were all the "world over; and great numbers of them being "settled at Rome, and in the cities of Greece "and the lesser Asia, as well as in other parts "of the world, they there frequently spoke among "their heathen neighbours of these Prophecies, " and the expectations they then had of their speedy completion. And from hence most of those "Prophecies among the heathens, which in the "times above mentioned predicted the coming of

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a GREAT KING out of JUDEA, who should in

great power and glory reign over the whole "world, seem chiefly to have had their original: "for this notion the Jews then had of the Messiah, "and it still continues among them." And we know that the most pious members of the Hebrew nation, at the very time when our Lord was born into the world, were anxiously "looking for redemp

* See Observationis, in Illustration of Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, ch. vii.

"tion in Jerusalem," and "waiting for the consolation "of Israel," through the accomplishment of the Prophecies which had foretold his appearance.

"A long time," however, was to elapse between that first appearing of our Lord, to found His Church, and His second and final appearing, to bring it to its conclusion upon Earth; and consequently, between the generation that witnessed the fulfilment of the first class of those Prophecies, and the generation which should witness the accomplishment of the second class:-between those persons "whose eyes then saw that salvation*;" and those who should ultimately "look up, and see their redemption drawing night."

This "long time" of interval was emphatically declared by our Lord Himself, in a parable admirably calculated to convey to mankind a clear and familiar notion of the general Scheme and Nature of His NEW DISPENSATION. But what was

signified or implied to us by "a long time?" or, how were we to understand the characters of long or short, with reference to the duration of this present dispensation?

To satisfy this most natural and reasonable inquiry, we are supplied with the only rule for judgment which the case can receive; yet it is a rule pregnant with the most weighty instruction: viz. the entire measure of ONE dispensation of God in the affair of Religion. By this rule our reason is, not only authorized, but directed to form a probable, that is the best, judgment, of what is long, or short, with respect to the measure of God's dispensations of Religion to man. The dispensation of the Law, which immediately preceded this under which we now subsist, continued about 1500 years, from first to last; at the conclusion of which measure of time it was pronounced by THE HOLY SPIRIT to be antiquated, and ending through age*. Since that

* Εν τῷ λέγειν καινην, πεπαλαίωκε την πρώτην το δε παλαιέμενον και γηρασκον, εγίύς αφανισμό" In pronouncing the latter (dis

period, the dispensation of the Gospel has subsisted above 1800 years. If, therefore, we had no other indication whereby to form a probable judgment of the present age of the Christian dispensation, we ought, upon every principle of sound reason and moral evidence, (such as we are enjoined by our Lord always to use,) to entertain a very strong suspicion, that the Christian dispensation must now have lasted nearly the whole compass of time for which it was originally decreed. This, I say, would be the just and unavoidable hypothesis of reason, if we exercised the same vigilance and fidelity of reason in matters of revelation, that we use in the affairs of common life. For we are positively put in possession of the rule of time, observed by Almighty God upon a former parallel occasion; and, as we have no authority whatever for assuming or supposing that this rule will be

"pensation) New, he declared the former to be Old; now, "that which is old and aged, is on the eve of disappearing." Heb. viii. 13.