he attempted to hire the Son of God to fall down and worship him, If then Judas was as we maintain, at the time of his death and afterwards, Satan "manifest in the flesh,' we may be sure that the ambition of Satan for divine worship was fully developed in him. As the fulness of God dwelt in Christ, so that he justly claimed divine honor, so we believe the fulness of Satan dwelt in Judas, causing him to oppose himself,' i. e. to set up himself as a rival of Christ, and seek to overreach him in his pretensions of divinity. It is evident that both Satan and Judas, after the death and resurrection of Christ, found themselves in a desperate case, and this doubtless helped to set them on the desperate attempt to supplant their great enemy, the Son of God, by counterfeiting his pretensions and intruding into his church.

V. The special antagonism which existed between Jesus Christ and Judas while they were in the flesh, is very distinctly marked in the Evangelists, The motto of the one was, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' The other was a sordid thief. The affair which finally provoked Judas to sell Jesus Christ to his murderers, was one in which the liberality of the one was arrayed against the covetousness of the other. (See Matt. 26: 6-16, compared with John 12: 6.) This same struggle of liberality against covetous. ness is very manifest in the history of the church after the death of Jesus and Judas. For example, the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost caused all hearts to flow together, and the lines of exclusiveness in regard to property were obliterated. Thus was Jesus manifested. But directly Ananias and Sapphira appeared on the field, in the full power of artful covet ousness. Why shall we not say, thus Judas was manifested? Those liars were certainly vessels of the same Satan that incarnated himself in Judas; and if the Spirit of God that prostrated selfishness on the day of Pentecost, was poured through the human nature of Jesus, why was not the spirit of Satan, that moved Ananias and Sapphira, poured through the human nature of Judas?

VI. Many circumstances conspire to prove that the Judas-spirit was in a great measure excluded from the church till the last days of the apostolic age. The transactions of the day of Pentecost, seconded by the awful judg ment of Ananias and Sapphira, made an impression which could not be im mediately effaced. Peter's withering rebuke of Simon Magus, also, was well fitted to put a check on Satan's attempts to amalgamate Christianity with Mammonism. At length Paul entered the field as the successor of Judas. Having at first betrayed the cause of Satan, as effectually as Judas betrayed that of Christ, he was soon found in Judas's peculiar office, 'carrying the bag' of the churches. But instead of embezzling the funds committed to him, he refused even to be supported by the churches, though it was his acknowledged right to live by the gospel,' but maintained himself and relieved others by the labor of his own hands. His self-sacrificing example, his labors and ap peals for the poor, and his loud repeated warnings against the love of money,' as being the root of all evil,' were agencies of mighty influence to keep back the revelation of the man of sin. As Judas was an anti-Christ, so Paul was an anti-Judas; and while he remained, there is every reason to believe that the church was comparatively pure from covetousness. We infer this from such predictions as the following: This know also, that in the last days,

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perilous times shall come: for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous,' &c.; (2Tim. 3: 1, 2;)-as though hitherto selfishness and covetousness had been almost unknown among the saints. Again, There shall be false teachers among you, ・・ and through covetousness, shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.' 2 Pet. 2: 1-3. Thus it would seem that simony and greedy priestcraft were yet, in Peter's time, to a great extent, matters of prophecy."

VII. We judge that Paul referred to himself, when he said- Ye know what withholdeth, that he [the man of sin] might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now [hindereth] will [hinder] till he be taken out of the way.' 2 Thess. 2: 6, 7. That Paul 'hindered' the invasion of the Judas-spirit, we have already seen. The following account of his interview with the elders of Ephesus, shows that he expected that spirit would break forth and ravage the church, when he himself should be taken out of the way: When they were come to him, he said to them, ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons: serving the Lord with all humility of mind: . . . and now behold I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more: . . . Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to the flock: . . . for I know this, that AFTER MY DEPARTURE shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.... Therefore watch, and remember that by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every one. ... I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel-yea, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my necessities, and to them that were with me; I have showed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And when he had thus spoken he kneeled down and prayed with them all.' Acts 20: 18-36. Now let it be supposed that Paul had said these same things to the Thessalonians, (and there is no reason to doubt that he did,) how readily and rightly would they understand him, as speaking of himself when he modestly writes- He that now hindereth will hinder, till he be taken out of the way:' and how easily would they perceive that his glorious freedom from covetousness, was that by which he 'hindered' the spirit of Judas from desolating the church. In a like strain he exhorts Timothy to

* We find no account in the New Testament, of any system of taxation in the primitive church. All contributions were voluntary. It no where appears that the ministers had stated salaries. The oft-quoted saying, 'The laborer is worthy of his hire,' certainly was not uttered by Jesus Christ or Paul with a view to countenance the modern practice of paying ministers regular wages; for no such practice existed in the times of the apostles. The ox that trod the corn' was not muzzled, but neither did he have his peck of corn measured out to him at stated intervals. The contributions which Paul labored so zealously to gather, and which are often referred to as examples for modern imitation, were not made for the support of ministers, or missionaries, but for the relief of poor saints. The church charged itself with the support of its widows and other needy persons, more systematically than with the support of its ministers; for some of the ministers, as for instance Paul, were able and willing to support themselves. Though there is no doubt that they who labored in spiritual things were generally and justly maintained in carnal things by the churches, yet the relief of the poor in each church, and of poor churches, especially in time of famine, was a far more prominent matter of finance, than the raising of wages for individual laborers.

strenuous diligence in his ministry, and warns him of impending apostasies in view of his own approaching departure. 2 Tim. 4: 1-6.

VIII. In order that we may understand the closing scene of the drama which we are investigating, we must keep in mind Judas's relation to the whole carnal Jewish church, as well as to the spiritual church of Christ. While on the one hand, he was the head of the false apostles, and greedy worldlings that were let loose on the church of Christ after Paul's departure, and so caused that great falling away,' whereby the Son of God was denied, and his impending second coming was scoffed at; and while on this portion of Judas's spiritual kingdom, God sent 'strong delusions, that they all might be damned' delusions, which have darkened all Christendom for eighteen hundred years-on the other hand, Judas was also the leader of the murderers of Christ, the spiritual head of the chief priests and Pharisees, those sanctimonious mammonites who constituted the Jewish hierarchy, and whose ripe iniquities purchased the destruction of Jerusalem, and the long desolations of Israel. On this part of Judas's spiritual body, God poured utter and literal destruction. Viewing the horrors of the siege and overthrow of Jerusalem, as a visible index of the judgment which came on Judas in the invisible world at the second coming of Christ, we may well believe that Paul's prediction concerning the man of sin, that the Lord should consume him with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy him with the brightness of his coming,' was fulfilled to the uttermost. The following words of the prophet Micah, plainly point out the sin for which God poured his judgments on the Jewish nation; and of that sin Judas was the very personification. We may therefore reasonably infer his judgment and damnation, as one of the invisible concomitants of the destruction of Jerusalem :-" Truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and

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* Dr. Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the first chapter of Acts, goes into a long and labored argument to prove the possibility and even probability of Judas's salvation, on the hypothesis that he sincerely repented, and instead of hanging himself, died of grief. It is a most curious instance of a divine's playing the lawyer for Satan; and it is so gross that it would be utterly unaccountable, were we not apprised by the whole tenor of the Doctor's Commentary, of his sleepless zeal against the doctrine of reprobation, which the case of Judas is commonly supposed to favor. We would far more readily undertake to plead the cause of Pontius Pilate, than of Judas. Many circumstances give a favorable aspect to Pilate's case. 1. He boldly maintained the innocence of Christ against his accusers, and did all he could to procure his release, short of a forcible resistance to the demands of the Jewish mob. 2. Christ expressly palliated his guilt, thus 'Pilate said unto him, Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power against me except it were given thee from above; therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.' John 19: 10, 11. Clarke makes Judas's knowledge of Christ's power, a palliation of his guilt, as though he expected Christ would exert it and so escape.Whereas Christ intimates that this was the very thing that made him a greater sinner than Pilate. 3. This distinction between Judas and Pilate, in regard to knowledge, would lead us to include Pilate in Christ's prayer-' Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do'-and exclude Judas. 4. Pilate exercised no extra-legal cruelty toward Jesus, whereas Herod and his men of war set him at nought,' clothed him in purple, crowned him with thorns, spit on him, &c. &c. These considerations, however, are to be regarded only as plausible grounds of argument, not sound proofs; for the tradition is, (what credit is due to it we know not,) that Pilate, like Judas, finally killed himself. But we hold that Dr. Clarke's conceit about Judas, is far less probable than ours about Pilate. Even Fletcher (whose authority is great among anti-Calvinists) gives up Judas to perdition. See 'Fletcher's Checks,' Vol. I. p. 404.

to Israel his sin. Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money; yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us. Therefore, shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest."

§ 43. ROBINSON ON MATT. 24: 29-31.

"The Coming of Christ; as announced in Matt. 24: 29-31." THE above is the title of a learned article in the third number of the Bibliotheca Sacra, (Dec. 1843,) by the editor, Edward Robinson, D. D. We will review it, for the sake of exhibiting to our readers the position of the learned world in relation to the predictions of the second coming.

Dr. Robinson first gives his views of the meaning of the disciples' question in the 3d verse of Matthew 24, notices the predictions in the former part of the chapter, introduces the whole of the 29th, 30th and 31st verses, with the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, closing with a sketch of the parable of the fig-tree, and the emphatic designation of time in the 34th verse, and then says:

"The subject is now before the reader; and the question to be considered is: Whether the language of Matthew in the passage above quoted, is to be referred to the judgment of the last great day; or, rather to the then impending destruc. tion of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation? It is a question on which good men have ever differed; and on which, perhaps, entire unity of feeling is not to be expected, until the night of darkness and ignorance in which we are here envel oped, shall be chased away by the morn of pure light and perfect knowledge.

It is conceded by all, I believe, that the representation as far as to the end of the 28th verse of Matthew, and in the parallel verses of the other evangelists, applies solely to the overthrow of Jerusalem. Or, if there be still those who would refer any portion of these preceding verses to the judgment day, it seems to me that they must first show that the abomination of desolation' spoken of by Mat. thew and Luke has nothing to do with the compassing of Jerusalem with armies," mentioned in the same connexion by Luke: and then, further, that all these things could have no connexion with the treading down' of Jerusalem by the Gentiles, which Luke goes on to speak of as the result of all these antecedent circumstan This, however, cannot well be shown, without disregarding every rule of interpretation, and without violating the very first principles of language. But with the 29th verse a new specification of time is introduced: Immediately after the affliction of those days' shall appear the harbingers of our Lord's coming; and these are depicted in language which elsewhere, it is said, is employ. ed only to describe his coming to the final judgment. The 'coming' here meant, is

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then to be subsequent to the downfall of Jerusalem; and can therefore only mean the coming of the Messiah in his kingdom at the judgment day. This opinion is perhaps, at the present time, the most prevalent one among commentators, and even with those whose views in other respects have little in common; as in the case of Olshausen and De Wette, [eminent German commentators.]

But on the other hand, it is replied, that the phrase immediately after' indicates a very close connexion of this 'coming' of our Lord with the preceding events; and the Savior himself goes on to declare, that this generation shall not pass away, till all these things be fulfilled.' We must then assume, it is said, that the prediction had its fulfilment within a period not long subsequent to our Lord's ministry; or, if it is to be referred to the day of judgment, then we must admit that our Lord was in error, inasmuch as he here foretold that it would take place immediately after the downfall of Jerusalem. For these reasons many commentators have understood the language as applicable only to the destruction of the Holy City: forgetting, apparently, that the very expression which they urge against a remote future application, is equally stringent against an exclusive reference to the latter catastrophe;" [i. e., the expression immediately after,' while it precludes reference to events far distant from the destruction of Jerusa lem, at the same time necessarily goes beyond that event.] p. 538.

In his examination of the language of the passage, preliminary to a presentation of his own views, Dr. Robinson says:

"The word eutheos means literally straightway, and implies a succession more or less direct and immediate; so that there can be no doubt, as De Wette justly remarks, that the coming of the Messiah, as here described by Matthew, was straightway to follow the destruction of Jerusalem. Indeed no meaning can possibly be assigned to eutheos, which will admit of any great delay; much less of an interval so enormous as that between the destruction of the Holy City and the end of the world, as understood by us. From this it is manifest, that 'the coming' of Christ here spoken of, as occurring after the downfall of Jeru salem, could not be meant to refer solely to that event.

Our Lord himself limits the interval within which Jerusalem shall be destroyed and his coming' take place, to that same generation: Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. The language is here plain, definite, and express; it cannot be misunderstood, nor perverted. It follows, in all the evangelists, the annunciation of our Lord's coming,' and applies to it in them all, just as much as it applies to the antecedent declarations respecting Jerusalem; and more directly, indeed, inasmuch as it stands here in a closer connexion." p. 540.

The writer then descants upon the word generation, and expresses the opinion that it is to be taken in the largest sense, and in accordance with popular Hebrew usage, as implying a hundred years,' or thereabouts. He then proceeds:

"The question now arises, Whether, under these limitations of time, a refer. ence of our Lord's language to the day of judgment and the end of the world, in our sense of these terms, is possible? Those who maintain this view attempt to dispose of the difficulties arising from these limitations in different ways. Some assign to eutheos the meaning suddenly, as it is employed by the Seventy in Job 5: 3, for the Hebrew pithom. But even in this passage, the purpose of the writer is simply to mark an immediate sequence--to intimate that another and conse quent event happened forthwith. Nor would any thing be gained, even could