SING WITH GLADNESS FOR JACOB, AND SHOUT AMONG THE CHIEF OF THE NATIONS:

voice unto Jerusalem, and the sanctuary; a voice unto bridegrooms and brides; a voice unto all the people." Though he was immediately brought before the Roman governor, Albinus, by the Jewish authorities, who were offended at this strange and portentous exclamation, and scourged there until the flesh was torn from his bones, he appeared insensible to the pain of his treatment; and was so far from being compelled to desist by it, that he continued to cry out as before, all the time he was scourging. At length he was dismissed, as one possessed of an unaccountable madness, and no further molested by either the Roman governor or the Jewish sanhedrim; after which Josephus tells us, that for seven years and five months, that is, from the autumn of U.c. 815, A.D. 62, to midsummer u.c. 823, A.D. 70, night and day

he continued to go about all the streets of Jerusalem,
especially during the feasts, uttering the same cry,
with no variation, except that occasionally he inter-
wove it with al, al 'leporodiμos, "alas, alas, for Jeru-
salem;" never once becoming weary, never getting
hoarse with incessant crying aloud, taking no notice
of anything, neither shewing symptoms of gratitude
towards those who gave him meat, or used him
kindly, nor symptoms of resentment against those
who gave him blows, or used him ill; until at last,
as he was making the circuit of the walls during
the siege, after repeating with a loud voice, woe
to the city, and to the people, and to the temple, he
added, al, ai de xauoi, at which moment he perished
by a blow from one of the Roman engines.'
(Pp. 266-..9.)

OF PERSECUTION.-Mt. xxiv. 9, &c., p. 326.

'Tacitus, when giving an account of the burning of Rome, u.c. 817, A.D. 61, a crime as we know purposely laid to the charge of the Christians, in order to divert the odium of the fact from its real author, the emperor Nero, Ann. xv. 44, though he bears witness to their innocence of this particular crime, yet speaks of them as "per flagitia invisos," as "sontes et novissima exempla meritos;" and calls Christianity itself "exitiabilis superstitio," one of the "atroica" and "pudenda," which, along with everything else of the same kind, had made its way to the city, and obtained a reception there There was nothing the most

calculated to excite horror and disgust, and to inflame the passions of a common humanity against the professors of such principles, or the perpetrators of such enormities, that was not currently imputed to the pure and holy religion of Jesus Christ, and thought to make a part of the practice of Christians. Atheism and profaneness, the utter contempt of everything which the world deemed sacred, human sacrifices, and banqueting upon human flesh, the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, unnatural lusts, incest, and the like;'.... (P. 283.)-And see p. 285, ib., for the probable origin of these charges. NEITHER DO YE PREMEDITATE.'-Mk. xiii. 11, p. 328. The conduct which christian orators were thus commanded to pursue, was .... very different not only from what human prudence itself might have suggested, but also from the example set them by the practice of the orators of antiquity generally. Aristotle's definition of the art of rhetoric, as taught in his own system, would apply to any of the rest; as a dúvaμis Toй Topicas λóyors, a dúvauis περὶ τοῦ δοθέντος εὑρεῖν λόγους, ἃ δύναμις τοῦ θεωρήσαι περὶ ἕκαστον τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον πιθανόν, or the like. His copious and minute collections of sin and TOTO, were intended, if such an effect was possible, to comprehend within a given compass all conceivable arguments on all conceivable subjects, which, in the exercise of the orator's vocation, could come under discussion; and so to prepare him at all points, and for every emergency. On some of these subjects, which were of more usual occurrence than others, so as to have the nature of loci communes, he directs him to be provided with the most pertinent topics, for or against the subject, duly arranged and comTHE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM... PREACHED IN ALL THE WORLD,' &c. Mt. xxiv. 14, p. 330. 'If by the words, "in all the world," (v p r oixovμévy,) we were to understand no more to be meant than the compass of the Roman empire, while we should be borne out in such a construction by classical usage and authority, the correspondence of the event with the prediction would become, in that case, too notorious to require to be pointed out. Between the time of St. Paul's first mission to the Gentiles from Antioch, A.D. 44, and the time of

mitted to memory; which he was to produce when the occasion served. Of their speeches, too, distributed as they were into the procem, the narration, the proof, the peroration, or the like-such portions as were more or less the same in all, it was usual to have lying by, in a variety of forms differently modified; one or other of which might be used on almost every occasion. Thus, among the extant works of Demosthenes, there is a collection of προοίμια, οι procms; as so many possible modes of introducing or beginning a speech, before coming to the particular subject under discussion. In like manner, there might be a variety of forms for concluding a speech, that is, of the epilogus or peroration. In short, to such a degree of system had the art of rhetoric been reduced, by this time, that with the exception of the part belonging to the head of the dynois and the ioris, (and not the whole even of either of those, respectively,) an orator of antiquity might have had a speech ready for any occasion, almost before he knew for what it was wanted.'-(P. 293.)

writing his epistle to the Romans, from Corinth or Cenchreæ, A.D. 56, by his own individual exertions round about from Jerusalem, as far as up to Illyricum, he had fully preached the gospel of Christ; not too upon a foundation already laid, but upon a foundation of his own laying; that is, not where other Christian evangelists had preached the gospel before him, but where its introduction for the first time was properly his own work.'... (P. 300.)

ABOMINATION,' &c.-Mt. xxiv. 15, p. 331. With this understanding previously established about it, the fact of such an occurrence would be at once an alarum, to rouse the fears of the believing Jews, and a final document to seal the doom of the unbelieving. Before that time, it would be the wisdom of the disciples to sit still, and watch the kind, and the progress of events, without perturbation, and without the disposition, whatever might appear the temptation, to bestir themselves for immediate escape, as if from impending danger. But now, their only means of safety would be the speediness of their flight. Not a moment was to be lost in profiting by the warning, once given.....

'WHEN YE THEREFORE SHALL SEE THE We may justly remark, that of the occurrences which were to forerun the destruction of Jerusalem, possessing the virtue of signs or harbingers in reference to an event still future-this was beyond a question the most important and deserving of attention, because the most awful and alarming in its signification. The catastrophe which previous intimations had shewn to be at first a great way off, and ever after more or less remote-was declared by this one, to be close at hand; and while former presages, until their common import had received the confirmation of this, the most oracular and momentous of all, were auspices of hope as well as omens of fear-in this one event, when it came to pass, there would be everything to alarm the apprehensions, nothing to encourage the confidence of the observers, for the security of the existing state of things....

They were to cast themselves entirely upon Godwith no ground of assurance but trust in his protection-with no prospect of an asylum, no hope of sus tenance and support, but what his providence might be found to furnish them.'... (Pp. 315, ..6.)

'THOSE DAYS SHALL BE SHORTENED.'-Mt. xxiv. 22, p. 333. A promise is subjoined to this declaration of the final end of the days in question, that they should be abridged, or cut short; with respect to the fact of which abridgment generally, or the fulfilment of the

VOL. II.]

prediction itself, understood, too, of both the extremities of the days in question, both the premature commencement, and the abrupt termination of the period so appropriated to the purpose of vengeance,

THE NIGHT ALSO IS THINE-Psa. lxxiv. 16.

[359

PUBLISH YE, PRAISE YE, AND SAY, O LORD, SAVE THY PEOPLE, THE REMNANT OF ISRAEL.-Jer. xxxi. 7.

IF YE WILL NOT BE REFORMED BY ME BY THESE THINGS, BUT WILL WALK CONTRARY UNTO ME;

Thirdly, as to the numbers who perished in the siege of Jerusalem,

U.C. 819, A.D. 66, on the 12th of Gorpiæus 50,000 U.C. 823. A.D. 70, from the fourteenth of

We have no account in the above enumeration of particulars, how many perished in the seditions at Cæsarea (Ant. Jud. xx. viii. 7; B. ii. xiii. 7; xiv. 5:) -or at Jerusalem, on the various occasions specified B. ii. xv. 5; xvii. 5-10; xix. 1-7; iv. iii. 12; vi. 3; ix. 2,000 10-12; v. i. 1-3; iii. 1-or in Tyre, Hippus, and Gadara (B. ii. xviii. 5:)-or in Galilee, generally, killed by Placidus (B. iii. iv. 1:)-or at the taking Gadara (B. iii. vii. 1:)-or at mount Tabor, killed by Placidus (iv. i. 8:)-or in the escape from Jericho to the ops or hill country of Judæa (B. iv. viii. 2:)-or round about Gerasa, killed by Lucius Annius (iv. ix. 1:)-or in Idumæa, by Simon Giore (iv. ix. 3-8:)or in Hebron, when its inhabitants were slain by Cerealis (iv. ix. 9)-and perhaps on other occasions, which may have escaped my notice.

Nor, often as false prophets are said to have appeared, in the course of the period before the war, and to have drawn away multitudes after them, all of whom with their followers were either slain or 6,500 dispersed by the Roman governors; are we told, 1,200 except in one or two instances, what was the number THE HORN:-Psa. lxxv. 4. [VOL. II.

THERE SHALL BE A DAY, THAT THE WATCHMEN UPON THE MOUNT EPHRAIM SHALL CRY,

who perished. In the other cases too, the numbers specified are those of the dead: nothing is said of the wounded, nor how many perished after a battle, from the injuries received therein. There is a still greater omission in the mention of the number of prisoners, on each occasion. If the Romans did not put to the sword all the inhabitants whether male or female, old or young, in the towns or the country, as different parts severally came into their powerwhich it is certain they did not, at least in a great many instances-the amount of captives must often have equalled the numbers of the slain. Yet Josephus specifies the altuaarol, as such, or prisoners reserved for slavery, only at Iapha (2,130, B. iii. vii. 31): at Jotapata (1,200, B. iii. vii. 36): at Tiberias (36,400, iii. x. 10): in the escape from Gischala (3,000, iv. ii. 5): at the Jordan (2,200. iv. vii. 5): in Idumæa (1,000, B. i7. viii. 1): and after the capture of Jerusalem, or during the siege (97,000, B. vi. ix. 3). These captives, we may presume, were disposed of in most instances alike: viz., such as were above the age of seventeen, to labour on the isthmus of Corinth, or in the mines in Egypt, or to be destroyed in the theatres, by each other's hands, as gladiators, or in combats with wild beasts (B. iv. x. 10; vi. ix. 2); and

those that were under the age of seventeen, to be sold into slavery, to any that would buy them (B. vi. ix. 2).

When we consider too, that in most of these instances, it is clearly the disposal of the male population which is specified; that nothing is said of the female part, whose numbers, however, would equal those of the male; we may reckon it a very probable supposition that, either by the sword, or by famine, or by captivity and absportation, Judæa was drained of two or three millions of inhabitants; that is, as I endeavoured to prove in my former work, of onethird of its population at least (vide Supplem. Diss. xiii. 224, sqq.); and all this within the space of nine years, which was the duration of the war, as I also shewed (Vol. I. Diss. xiii. 578. sqq. Cf. Supplem. Diss. 431-.38) from first to last, viz., v.c. 819, A.D. 66v.c. 828, A.D. 75; by far the greatest part of the carnage and loss of life, in every way, being that which was effected between the spring of u.c. 819, A.D. 66, in the first year of the war, and the beginning of the autumnal quarter, u.c. 823, A.D. 70, in the fifth; the date of the capture of Jerusalem. (Pp. 353-..8.)

'JERUSALEM SHALL BE TRODDEN 'We are told (Bell. Jud. v. iii. 2) that upon the first approach of Titus with his army to the siege of the city, about the middle of April, u.c. 823, A.D. 70, he caused the whole of the space, between Scopus and the monument of Herod (a distance of five stades at least, the former being seven, the latter two stades from the walls of Jerusalem), to be levelled with the ground. This was the beginning of the iphuaois of Jerusalem.....

ON FALSE CHRISTS.-See 'Though no matter of fact is capable of being more fully substantiated by the testimony of contemporary history, than this of the repeated appear. ance of pretenders to the name and character of the Jewish Messiah, during the interval between the Ascension and the commencement of the Jewish war,

DOWN,' &c.-Lu. xxi. 24, p. 334.

'Upon the final reduction of the city, as well as the temple, Titus gave orders to level all with the ground, except the three towers, called Phasaelus, Hippicus, and Mariamne, and the part of the city wall on the west; the former, for their size, their strength, and beauty, to be a monument what kind of defences Roman valour had conquered, the latter as a protection to the military force which he left in possession of the place.'-(P. 361.) Mt. xxiv. 5, 23, pp. 325, .34, ..5. the fact that any one ever arose laying claim to that title before the birth, or between that time and the beginning of the ministry of our Saviour, is just as destitute of support or confirmation from external testimony of any kind.'—(P. 380.)

Yet

was without a rival in the ancient world.
when the sense of honest pride and patriotic ex-
ultation, in the possession of so distinguished an
ornament of his age and nation, was at its height
in the mind of the disciple, whose apostrophe to
our Lord, excited by the contemplation and the
admiration of its buildings, as they were passing
through its courts, is so singularly contrasted with
the melancholy iniport of his answer-this was the
moment chosen to inculcate upon him, and the rest
of the hearers, the mournful truth of its future ruin
and desolation. There is a moral pathos in this
coincidence, derived not only from the consideration
of the calamity itself thus forcibly brought to view,
but from the reflection which it naturally excites
upon the causes to which that effect should be due;
not merely the fleeting and transitory quality of all
human works, but moreover the efficacy of human
sin and human guilt to abase and annihilate the
proudest and most durable monuments of human
power and human grandeur; how much more speedy
and irresistible than time, or any other agent of de-
struction, the wickedness of men themselves should
be, to deface and obliterate the fairest and noblest of
their own creations......

RETROSPECT OF THE PROPHECY.-pp. 413-.21. 'THE TIME selected for the delivery of these predictions, peculiar as they are in the subjects upon which they turn, and copious and minute as they are in their details, was singularly appropriate. This period was the close of our Saviour's public ministry, just before the event of his suffering, and not long anterior to his final separation from his disciples in person. If we regard them as prophetical of the impending dissolution of the Jewish church and state, considered in the light of the national punishment upon the national guilt, contracted by the failure of our Lord's ministry, perhaps we shall conclude they could not have been delivered at any period of his ministry with more fitness than at this. The national sin of the Jews was now complete. A long series of overt acts, and declarations of impenitence and infidelity, had placed beyond a question the fact of their rejection of the Messiah, notwithstanding the evidence of the fulfilment of prophecy, the testimony of John the Baptist, the preaching of our Lord himself, and the glory of his miracles, all conspiring to establish the truth of his character; or if the same fact required any further proof, it was shortly about to receive it in the crucifixion of the Master, and the systematic hatred and persecution of his followers. With reason then did the denunciation of the punishment coincide with the time of the consummation of the guilt.....

'If we regard these disclosures, on the other hand, as equally intended for the sake of our Lord's own disciples, the period selected for their delivery will appear not less suitable. As a means of assuring the Hebrew Christians beforehand of his constant care and providence in their behalf, they would be most necessary when he was about to be personally separated from them.....

THE OCCASION, too, which more immediately produced these disclosures, whatever further end might be contemplated by them, possesses something peculiarly impressive. The prophecy was delivered in answer to an inquiry of the apostles; but this question arose apparently out of the prediction relating to the fate of the temple. . . . A temple which, for the magnificence of its structure, the costliness and beauty of its materials, as well as for the purity of its worship, and the sacredness of its character,

VOL. II.]

THE FECULIARITY OF THE PLACE, too, on which this prophecy was delivered, is as remarkable as any other.... The time would come when mount Olivet, on which the speaker was sitting, would be covered not only with the ministers, but with the monuments of the predicted vengeance; when the entire vicinity of Jerusalem would be so filled with the spectacle of suffering, that, as Josephus tells us was the case, crosses should be wanted for bodies, and room for crosses.....

We might specify many passages in the above account, which the local situation of the speaker, and of the parties addressed, would at once illustrate and apply; where the allusion to things about him and them was too pointed to be overlooked; in which the sentiments or language of the discourse might have been suggested by the circumjacent picture; into which the very attitudes and gestures of the speaker, a turn of the body, a glance of the eye, a motion of the hand, might have thrown a living force and expression.'....(Pp. 413-.21.)-Greswell,

THE HUMBLE SHALL SEE, AND BE GLAD:-Psa. lxix. 32.

[361

ARISE YE, AND LET US GO UP TO ZION UNTO THE LORD OUR GOD.-Jer. xxxi. 6.

LET US ENDEAVOUR TO BE PREPARED FOR THE PROPER OBSERVANCE OF RELIGIOUS ORDINANCES;

SECTION 87.-(G. 82–92.)-[Lessons 85-90.*]-PARTICULARS OF THE FIFTH DAY IN PASSION WEEK, THURSDAY, THE EVENING OF NISAN THE FOURTEENTH. PETER AND JOHN ARE SENT TO PREPARE THE PASCHAL SUPPER. JESUS SITS DOWN WITH THE TWELVE. HE WASHES THE DISCIPLES' FEET. HE INSTITUTES THE BREAKING OF BREAD. FORETELLS HIS BETRAYAL. JUDAS LEAVES THE SUPPER CHAMBER. JESUS COMFORTS HIS DISCIPLES; AND FORETELLS THAT PETER WILL DENY HIM. THE DISCIPLES DISPUTE CONCERNING PRECEDENCE. JESUS AGAIN FOREWARNS PETER. JESUS BIDS ALL HIS DISCIPLES DRINK OF THE CUP IN REMEMBRANCE OF HIM. AFTER SUPPER JESUS DISCOURSES WITH HIS DISCIPLES, AND DEPARTS TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. FORETELLS A THIRD TIME THAT PETER WILL THRICE DENY HIM; HE PROMISES THE DISCIPLES THAT AFTER HIS RESURRECTION HE WILL GO BEFORE THEM INTO GALILEE.Matt. xxvi. 17-35. Mark xiv. 12-31. Luke xxii. 7-39. John xiii.-xviii. 1.—[See ADDENDA, infra, pp. 408-.11.]

ANALYSIS.

Mt. xxvi. 17. Mk. xiv. 12, .3. Lu. xxii. 7-9. Jesus sends Peter and John to prepare the passover.

He

Mt. xxvi. - Mk. xiv. - Lu. xxii. 15, .6. tells them how earnestly he has desired to eat this xxvi. 18. - xiv. 13.5. -xxii. 10-.2. He passover with them; saying he will not any more tells them where to go, what to say, and how they partake thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of will speed; giving thereby tokens of his omniscience. God.' -xxvi. 19. -xiv. 16. - xxii. 13. The - xxii. 17, .8. Havdisciples follow the directions of their Lord; they ing taken the cup, Jesus gives thanks, and tells them find as he foretold, and do as he commanded. to divide it among themselves; as for himself, he will xxvi. 20. xiv. 17. -xxii. 14. Even- not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of ing being come, he sits down with the twelve. God shall come." See also pp. 365, ..7, INTRODUCTION, &c., Jno. xiii. 1-17. No. 87.-(G. 82.)-Peter and John are sent to prepare the

Mt. xxvi. 17. unleavened bread-appointed to be eaten seven days at the feast of the passover, Ex. xii. 15, 8-1 Co. v. 8, Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.'

passover.

up until the fourteenth, and killed the same day at even, Ex. xii. 3, 6-see 1 Co. v. 7, 'Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: '

Mk. xiv. 12. Where wilt thou, &c.-The servants of the Lord will carefully watch the intimations of his will, Ps. cxxiii. 2-they will put him in remembrance, Is. lxii. 6, 7-and seek to know his will that they may do it, Ps. cxix. 33.

NOTES.

Lu. xxii. 7. the passover must be killed-A lamb for each house was to be taken on the tenth day-kept [Mt. xxvi. 17. Now the first day of the feast of un- cause on that day the Jews killed the paschal lamb, leavened bread. As the feast of unleavened bread removed leaven from their houses, and made all nedid not begin till the day after they killed the pass-cessary preparations for keeping the seven days of over,' i.e., on the fifteenth day of the month, Le. unleavened bread which were to follow. The first xxiii. 5, 6; Nu. xxviii. 16, .7, this could not have day' here spoken of by St. Matthew answers to the been, properly, the first day of that feast. Strictly Thursday before Easter.-See ADD., p.402, col. 2, par. 5.] speaking, the feast of unleavened bread did not begin till the evening of this day, when the paschal lamb was eaten; that is, just at the beginning of the fifteenth day of the month, the Jewish day being reckoned from evening to evening: but as the Jews began to eat unleavened bread on the fourteenth, Ex. xii. 18, this day was often termed the first of unleavened bread. The evangelists use it in this sense, and call even the paschal day by this name-see Mk. xiv. 12; Lu. xxii. 7-the reason of which appears to be, beLesson 85, in the System of Graduated Simultaneous Instruction,' includes Mt. xxvi. 17-26. Mk. xiv. 12-22. Lu. xxii. 7-23. Jno. xiii. 1-30.

The passover. The word in the original translated passover, commonly means, not the feast itself, but the lamb that was killed on the occasion-see Ex. xii. 43; 1 Co. v. 7; where Christ, our Passover, is said to be sacrificed [slain] for us: i.e., our Paschal Lamb; so called on account of his innocence, and his being offered as a victim, or sacrifice, for our sins.

Mk. xiv. 13. Go ye into the city. That is, into Jerusalem.

AND LET US, ESPECIALLY IN SUCH MATTERS, ENDEAVOUR TO OBTAIN DIRECTIONS FROM OUR LORD.-See Matt. xxvi. 17.

362]

LET ME NOT BE ASHAMED;-Psa. xxv. 20.

[VOL. II.

THEY WHO TAKE DIRECTION FROM JESUS MAY EXPECT TO FIND THEIR JOURNEY PROSPEROUS.

NOTES.

It was

PRACTICAL REFLECTION.

[Lu. xxii. 10-.2. Jesus modifies his instructions according to the necessities of his disciples: now when in danger of being offended in him, on account of his sufferings and death, it was needful that they should anew be given assured evidence of to enter.] 13 ver. See margin. VOL. II.] HE KNOWETH THY WALKING-Deut. ii. 7.

their Lord's foreknowledge. Had they been rightly profited by the present lesson, they would have learned quietly to wait upon God until those calamities were over into which they were that very night

BLESSED IS THE MAN THAT FEARETH THE LORD, THAT DELIGHTETH GREATLY IN HIS COMMANDMENTS.-Psa. cxii. 1.