fled for his life to Lycaonia, and "there came thither Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead." It is needless to complete the record of their misdeeds and oppression. Separate from the Acts of the Apostles the instances it gives of Christians persecuted by Jews, and most of the troubles of the primitive believers disappear. Paul writing to the Thessalonians speaks thus, "the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uppermost." So long as these unrelenting adversaries had a legal position and influence in all parts of the Roman empire, there was no repose, and scarcely any respite, for the harassed Nazarenes. Any event which disarmed the Jews, would give the most effectual relief to the Christians; most effectual, for probably an imperial decree against them was less to be dreaded, than the existence in every place of influential enemies whose vigilance never slumbered, and the intensity of whose hatred nothing could abate.

Ye shall find rest—áváπavoi—-to your souls, is the beautiful promise of Christ. "Let us labour to enter into that rest❞—κатáπavoi-is an exhortation in the Epistle to the Hebrews; where also we read that there remaineth a rest oaßßariouós-to the people of God. In the passage under consideration it is neither of those words, but aveois, that is translated rest; which term means respite rather than rest, a mitigation of trouble rather than its cessation. The Apostle therefore may be regarded as teaching the Thessalonians, that by the revelation of the Lord Jesus which was at hand, tribu

lation would befal the persecutors and respite be given to the persecuted: and further, that when the Saviour shall come at the last day, the former would be destroyed, and the latter receive glory and joy as their portion. So interpreting the words, their pertinence and worth are manifest: whereas the interpretation which refers the whole to the end of the world, supposes the inspired author to have written as though the saints who were enduring a "great fight of afflictions," must wait for rest, or even respite, until the end of the world. And if any think the expressions used by Paul too strong to be applied to the downfall of the Jews and Judaism, they be reminded that the resemblance of the passage to may our Lord's prophecy concerning Jerusalem, suggests the probability-not to say certainty-that both pointed to the same event.

"Tribulation to them that trouble you."

"To you who are troubled rest."

"The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels."

"Taking vengeance."

"Then shall be great tribulation."

"Then lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."

"They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."

"These be the days of vengeance."*

Other references to the coming of the Lord the student of scripture will discover, which are exceed

Gibbon describes events occurring from about the date of the text and for 80 years onward. "From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives: and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised against a race of fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstitions seemed to render them the implacable enemies, not only of the Roman government, but of human kind."

ingly perplexing if referred to the end of the world, and quite plain and pertinent if referred to that speedy advent which Christ himself had foretold, both literally and figuratively, and which we may be assured his servants would anticipate eagerly, and speak of frequently, especially the Hebrew Christians, because against them the jealousy of their unbelieving brethren burned most fiercely. Hence one of them exhorts the whole, saying, "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith ** not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together** and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." "Be ye patient," said another addressing the twelve tribes, "stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."

The author's purpose in these pages, was not to describe the last day, but to render obvious the distinction between the advent of the Lord in the first century, and his final advent.

CHAPTER XX.

ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

LAZARUS, by the mighty power of Christ, was recalled from the tomb. Many persons when they speak of the resurrection, seem to have no other conception of it than as a similar change passing on all: but the scriptures teach us to distinguish between resurrection, the resurrection of dead people, the resurrection of the body, the resurrection of the same body, resurrection from the dead, resurrection of the dead, resurrection of the just, and resurrection of the unjust.

Resurrection-áváσraσis-was not a new word made to express a Christian doctrine, but an old word employed for that purpose. It means strictly "the act of rising." Thus we read "This child is set for the fall and rising again—ȧváσraow-of many in Israel." The word when used of the dead, by no means denotes necessarily their bodily resurrection: for it is quite conceivable that the dead should be raised, or made to stand up, without receiving a body of flesh and blood, or any other body; of which we have a lively example in the story of Saul and the witch of Endor. "What seest thou?" was Saul's inquiry; and she answered "An old man cometh up.' Assuming that there was a real appearance of Samuel, this was a resurrection of a dead man, but not a bodily resurrection. A similar glimpse is given us in the book of Isaiah, when the king of Babylon dies. "Hades from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming. It stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth:

it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations; all they shall speak and say, Art thou also become weak as we, art thou become like one of us?" When informed that the Sadducees said there was no resurrection, but the Pharisees held the contrary opinion, we are apt to conclude the meaning to be that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the body, and the Sadducees denied it: but Josephus, a valuable witness on such a question, informs us that the Sadducees held that souls died with the bodies, but the Pharisees that souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards and punishments, the vicious being detained in an eternal prison, and the virtuous having power to revive and live again. Hence the conclusiveness of our Lord's reasoning with the Sadducees, the point at issue being, not that resurrection which Paul preaches in the fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, but any rising up or renewal of active existence after this life. Are the dead inert or not? That was the point at issue; and the reply of the Great Teacher was luminous and conclusive. "As touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." In the same way, possibly, should we explain an expression in the epistle to the Hebrews, in which the writer classes the resurrection of the dead among first principles; a description which he is not likely to have applied to the final victory of Christ and his servants. He is probably speaking of that future and active existence after death, which was included in the popular creed of the Hebrews. We learn then to distinguish between a resurrection of dead people, and a bodily resurrection. The