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appropriate to this second and still future coming was employed by Christ to describe his providential coming for the destruction of Jerusalem." But, if such language as is here employed does not denote Christ's Second Coming, is there any language in the Bible that does ? If vv. 29-31 signify merely the destruction of Jerusalem, why may not all the similar expressions in the New Testament? To make but a single comparison, how can any one, without the aid of a new revelation, pronounce that, of the two following passages, the one refers to the destruction of Jerusalem and not to the Second Advent, but the other to the Second Advent and not to the destruction of Jerusalem ?

Mat. xxiv. 30, “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."

Rev. i. 7, "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him : and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him."

If there are no predictions of any coming of Christ subsequent to the second, and no predictions of this stronger than such as were fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem, is it not quite gratuitous, not to say idle, to anticipate any further coming?.

5. It is said that "these predictions of our Lord respecting his coming have a double sense. In their primary and lower sense, they refer to his coming for the destruction of Jerusalem, and were consequently fulfilled within the specified time; but in their secondary and higher sense, they refer to his final coming to judgment, and are consequently still unfulfilled." A plea like this it is always difficult to know how to meet. It takes the whole subject out of the region of sunshine, and

carries it into a land of mist and mirages and double vision, where our notions of identity are confounded, and where we are unable to distinguish substance from shadow, and fact from fancy. Still it may not be amiss to make one or two obvious suggestions.

The doctrine of a double sense is itself either reasonable or absurd, according to the sense in which it is understood. That the words of the prophets and other inspired writers were sometimes true in a higher sense than they themselves contemplated, I cannot doubt. But does not this necessarily imply imperfection of knowledge in them? And can any thing like this be attributed to the Saviour? Can we suppose it possible that his words had a higher sense than he himself contemplated? Or is it any less presumptuous and absurd to suppose, that, in an apparently direct answer to a direct and most important inquiry, knowing fully "the end from the beginning," he yet spake of two entirely distinct events, the one within forty years, and the other thousands of years distant, as if they were one and the same event, expressly declaring that all would be fulfilled in the course of the generation then living, and adding the solemn as“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," and all this when the more distant event was the one especially contemplated in the question, and to which the answer appears equally to have especial reference? What is incredible, if this can be believed?

surance,

Besides, if the expression "all these things," in v. 34, refers to the things which had just been predicted, and our Saviour had just predicted his Second Coming, what difference can it possibly make, how many other things he had also predicted? Must not this, at all events, be

included? Whether we suppose his predictions to have had two or twenty senses, whether he spoke of two comings or two hundred, did not the comprehensive words "all these things" (or "all," according to Luke) include the whole ? Were these words mere cobwebs, that caught the minor events, but suffered the great ones to break through ?

I see therefore no way of avoiding the conclusion, that our Saviour expressly and most solemnly declared, just before his death, that the generation then upon the earth would not pass away, before the grand event of his Second Coming.

Such are the proofs of our third proposition. Such are the words of our Saviour himself, words which, I need not say, must be true, and must be true in the very sense which he contemplated. If we have understood them aright, here is an end of all controversy. But can we have essentially misunderstood them? If we cannot understand such plain intimations and explicit declarations respecting the simple matter of time, what hope is there of understanding the Scriptures at all? how do we know that they teach any thing whatever respecting a second coming of Christ? There is one test, however, which remains to be applied. How did the Apostles understand these words of their Master? What expectations did they found upon them? If their interpretation was manifestly the same with ours, there can be no longer any doubt of its accuracy. This brings us to our fourth proposition.

PROPOSITION IV.

THE APOSTLES EVIDENTLY EXPECTED, THAT THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, WITH ITS ASSOCIATE EVENTS, WOULD TAKE PLACE BEFORE THE DEATH OF SOME WHO WERE THEN LIVING.

This expectation appears,

I. In passages directly asserting or implying that some of the Apostles, or of those whom they addressed, would

survive until these events.

1 Cor. xv. 50, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God: neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. (51) Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. (52) In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump for the trumpet shall sound, and THE DEAD shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (53) For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."

1 Thess. iv. 13, "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. (14) For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. (15) For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [precede] them which are asleep. (16)

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first: (17) Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (18) Wherefore, comfort one another with these words."

That the sleep spoken of in these passages is the sleep of death, no one, I presume, will question. The word in the original for sleep or be asleep is кoμáoμai, which is used in the New Testament only four times in the sense of literal sleep, but fourteen times to denote the sleep of death. Its use in these two passages is also determined by the unequivocal expression "the dead." Some, however, suppose that the word "we" is here used very loosely, and that the Apostle merely meant to say that there would be some Christians alive, and SO changed without death, at the time of Christ's Second Coming. But to this view there are obviously strong, if not insuperable, objections.

1. It is at variance with the natural interpretation of the passages. If a pastor, in addressing his people either from the pulpit or by letter, should use such expressions as "We shall not all die," "We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord," &c., would he not be understood, of course, as believing in the speedy coming of Christ? And had the Corinthians or Thessalonians any reason for understanding the Apostle differently?

2. It greatly diminishes the force and significance of these passages.

3. It does not consist with the emphasis belonging to WE in those clauses in which it has been printed above

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