the end come: The end of the age, concerning which you are enquiring, shall happen after the gospel or good news of the kingdom of heaven, the new dispensation of religion, is sufficiently published in all the world. Two things, therefore, are here fore told; first, that before the destruction of Jerusalem, the gospel should be preached in all the world, that is, through all the Roman empire, commonly called Imperium orbis terrarum. The second thing foretold is, that when the gospel was thus universally preached, Jerusalem should be destroyed, and the Mosaical economy brought to an end. That the gospel should be preached to all nations before the dissolution of the Jewish state, was necessary, in order that it might be offered to all nations with sufficient evidence; or, as our Lord expresses it, that it might be for a witness to all nations. The reason is, the historical facts, on which the truth of the Christian religion depends, received great confirmation from the opposition which the Jews made as a nation to this religion, and from their persecuting its disciples; for it could not but appear, in the eyes of all the Gentiles, a strong proof of the truth of the gospel-history, that the most important particulars contained in it were never called in question by the people, among whom they were said to have happened, notwithstanding they rejected the gospel, and persecuted its preachers. Their opposi tion to Christianity as a body politic, being thus necessary for the confirmation of the gospel, it was necessary that their constitution should subsist, until the gospel was preached to all nations.. Our Lord having foretold both the more remote and the more immediate signs of the end of the Jewish economy, proceeds to describe the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. Matt. xxiv. 15. When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place. The abomina tion which caused the desolation whereof Daniel has prophesied, ch. ix. 27. signifies the Roman armies with their standards, wherein the images of their idols were painted; which armies were an abomination to the Jews on account of their idolatry, and caused desolation wherever they came. When ye shall see these armies encamped in the holy place, i. e. in the territory of Jerusalem, called by the Jews the holy city, Matt. xxvii. 53. whoso rendeth, let him understand: Let him who readeth Daniel's prophecy (for it is our Lord, and not the evangelist who says this) understand, that the end of the city and sanctuary, with the ceasing of the sacrifice and oblation there predicted, is come, and of conse quence the prophecy we learn from Josephus, who has wrote seven books of the wa's of the Jews, wherein he has described with great exactness this scene of desolation in all its dreadful circumstances; and by a variety of dates hath shewed that it happened about forty years after our Lord's death, cons quently immediately after the gospel was preached through the whole Roman empire. quence, the end of the age mentioned by our Lord in the preceding verse. Accordingly, in Luke it is thus expressed, xxi. 20, And when ye shall see * Jerusalem encompassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.21. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, in allusion to the histo of Lot, and let them which are in the midst of it, depart out, and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. Matt. xxiv. 17. Let him which is on the, house-top not come down (Mark, go down into the house, neither enter therein) to take any thing ry 1 out * Lake 20. Jerusalem encompassed with armies, &c.] The admonition to them who were in the midst of Jerusalem to depart out, and to them who were in the countries not to enter thereinto, shews that the encompassing of Jerusalem with armies, spoken of in the prophecy, was such as would permit the inhabitants' to flee out of it, and those who were in the countries to enter into it. Behold here the wonderful prescience of the Author of the Christian religion. Cestius Gallus, in the beginning of the war, invested Jerusalem, and took Betheza or the lower town. Josephus, Bell. ii. 24. says, "If he had continued the siege but a little longer, he would have taken the city. But I think that God being angry with the wicked, would not suffer the war to be ended at that time. For Cestius removed his army, and, having received no loss, very unadvisedly departed from the city." This conduct of the Roman general, so contrary to all the rules of prudence, was doubtless brought to pass by the providence of God, who interposed in this manner for the deliverance of the disciples of his Son. Accordingly Josephus, in ch. xxv. of the same book tells us, that "immediately after Cestius' departure, many of the principal Jews daily filed from the city, as from a sinking ship." Among these we may believe there were numbers of the Christians, who remembering their Master's admonition, foresaw what was to happen. Embracing therefore the opportunity afforded them by Cestius' departure, they fled out of Judea, and so escaped the general ruin, as their Master had promised them, Matt. xxiv. 13. Luke xxi. 18. To this agrees what Eusebius tells us, Hist. ii. 5. "That the people of the church in Jerusalem being ordered by an oracle given to the faithful in that place, by revelation, left the city before the war, and dwelt in a city of Perea, the name of which y was Pella. Eusebius seems to say, that the Christians were warned to fly by a parti, cular revelation given them at that time. With him Epiphanius agrees, who speaking of the same event, Hæres. Nazaren, 7. says, "That the Christians in Jerusalem were admonished of its destruction by an angel." Nevertheless, the oracle, or divine admonition, of which these authors speak, seems rather to have been our Lord's prophecy and admonition, to which, every circumstance of the history perfectly agrees. + Luke 21. Which are in Judea, &c.] By Judea we are to understand all the southern parts of Palestine, both the plain and the hill countries, which at this time went by the name of Judea. By the mountains, we are to understand the countries on the east side of Jordan, especially those which, in the time of the war, were under the government of the younger Agrippa, to whom Claudius gave I. anea and Trachonitis, the tetrarchy of Phi. lip, and Abilene, the tetrarchy of Lysaneas. Nero afterwards added that quarter of Galilee where Tyberias and Tarrichea stood, and in Perea, Julias with its fourteen villages. All these countries remaining in their obedience to the Romans, the people who fled into them were safe. Besides, being mountainous countries, they seem to have been the very place of refuge pointed out to the Christians of those tinies by their Master. See on John ix 40. $ 84. out of his house. (See on Luke xvii. 31. §101.) 18. Neither let him which is in the field, plowing, sowing, or reaping, which kinds of labour they commonly performed with their upper garments off, return back to take (Mark, take up) his clothes. Luke xxi. 22. For these be the days of vengeance: the days wherein God will avenge himself of this nation, and punish it for all its sins; see on Matt. xxiii. 36. § 121.-that all things which are written, viz. in the law and the prophets, and particularly by the prophet Daniel, may be fulfilled. Matt. xxiv. 19. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days. In those days of vengeance, women with child, and such as have infants on their breasts, as well as the lame, the blind, and the diseased, shall be particularly unhappy, because they cannot flee from the impending ruin. 20. But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, when the badness of the roads, and the rigour of the season, will make travelling speedily almost impossible, * neither on the sabbath-day, when you will think it unlawful. 21. For then (Mark, in those days) shall be great tribulation, Luke, Matt. 20. Neither on the sabbath-day.] In this direction our Lord by no means approved of the superstitious regard which the Jews paid to the sabbath; far less does he establish the observation of the Jewish sabhatk under the gospel. He only declares the inconveniences, which the superstition of the nation would occasion, if their flight should happen on the sabbath. The direction, which was given by Jesus himself, may afford us great comfort. For it shews, that notwithstanding afflictions befal us by the decree of God, the circumstances of them may be mitigated by our prayers. Matt. 21. Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not, &c.) Never had words a more sad or full accomplishment than these. For the miseries which befel this people about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, were such as no history can parallel. Within the city the fury of the opposite factions was so great, that they filled all places, and even the tem ple itself with continual slaughters. Nay, to such a pitch did their mad ness arise, that they destroyed the very granaries of corn which should have sustained them, and burnt the magazines of arms which should have defended them. By this means when the siege had lasted but two months, the famine began to rage, and at length reduced them to such straits, that the barbarities which they practised, are not to be imagined; see Bell. vi. II. Even the mothers ate their own children, Bell. vii. 8. In short, from the beginning of the seige to the taking of the city, there were slain by faction, by famine, by pestilence, and by the enemy, no less than eleven hundred thousand in Jerusalem. So that, as Josephus himself observes in his preface to the history of this war, "If all the calamities which the world from the beginning hath seen, were compared with those of the Jews, they would appear inferior." And that the peculiar hand of Provi dence was visible in this destruction of the r tion, the same author affirms. For, having described the vast multitudes of people that were in Jerusa lem, when it was besieged, he says, Bell. vii. 17. "This multitude was as sembled together from other places, and was there, by the providence of God, shut up as it were in prison." Besides he tells us, that Titus himself took notice that the Jews were urged on by God himself to their destruction. (Luke, great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people) such and * Luke 24. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations.] The fulfilment of this part of the prophecy, we have Bell. vii. 16. where Josepitus describes the sacking of the city. "And now rushing into every lane, they slew whomsoever they found, without distinction, and burnt the houses and all the people who had fled into them. And when they entered for the sake of plunder, they found whole families of dead persons, and houses full of carcases destroyed by famine, then they came out with their hands empty. And though they thus pitied the dead, they did not feel the same emotion for the living, but killed all they met, whereby they filled the laues with dead bodies. The whole city ran with blood, insomuch, that many things which were burning, were extinguished by the blood " Thus were the inhabitants of Jerusalein slain with the sword; thus was she laid even with the ground, and her children with her. Ibid. "The soldiers being now wearied with killing the Jews, and yet a great number remaining alive, Cesar commanded that only the aimed, and they who resisted, should be slain. But the soldiers killed also the old and the infirm; and taking the young and strong prisoners, carried them into the womens court in the temple. Cosar appointed one Fronto, his freed-man and friend, to guard them, and to determine the fate of each. All the robbers and the seditious he slew, one of them betraying another. But picking our such youths as were remarkable for stature and beauty, he reserved them for the triumph. All the rest that were above seventeen years old, he sent bound into Egypt, to be employed in labour there. Titus also sent many of them into the provinces, to be slain in the theatres, by beasts and the sword. And those who were under seventeen years of age, were slain And during, the time Fronto judged them, a thousand died of hunger." Chap. xvii, “Now the number of the captives that were taken during the time of the war, was ninety-seven thousand, and of all that died and were slain during the siege, was eleven hundred thousand, the most of them Jews by nation, though not inhabitants of the place; for being assembled together from all parts to the feast of unleavened bread, of a sudden they were environed with war. >> Thus were the jews ked away captive into all nations. However, the falling by the edge of the sword, mentioned in the prophe. cy, is not to be confined to what happened at the siege. It comprehended all the slaughters that were made of the Jews in the different battles, and sieges, and massacres, both in their own land and out of it, during the whole course of the war. Such as at Alexandria, where fifty thousand pe rished; at Cæsarea, ten thousand; at Scythopolis, thirteen thousand; at Damascus, ten thousand; at Ascalon, ten thousand; at Apheck, fifteen thousand upon Gelizm, eleven thousand; and at Jotapata, thirty thou VOL. I', 3 H sand. and shall be led away captive into all nations: Great multitudes of them shall be slaughtered; and those who remain being taken captive, shall be dispersed over the whole earth. This is our Lord's paraphrase on Dan. ix. 26. " And the end thereof," viz. of the city and sanctuary, "shall be with a flood." For as a great flood sweeps all before it, this image strongly represents the depopulation of Judea, not only by the sword, but by the capti vities which followed on the conquest thereof. And Jerusalem shall sand. And thus was verified what our Lord told his disciples, the first time he uttered his prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, that wherever the carcase was, there the eagles should be gathered toge ther, Luke xvii. 37. Luke 24. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, &c.] The accomplishment of this part of the prophecy, as indeed of every arti cle of it, is wonderful. For after the Jews were almost utterly destroyed, by death and captivity, Vespasian commanded the whole land of Judea to be sold. Bell. vii. 26. " At that time Cesar wrote to Bassus, and to Libe rius Maximus, the procurator, to sell the whole land of the Jews; for he did not build any city there, but appropriated their country to himself, leaving there only eight hundred soldiers, and giving them a place to dwell in, called Emmaus, thirty stadiums from Jerusalem; and he imposed a tribute upon all the Jews wheresoever they lived, commanding every one of them to bring two drachms into the capitol, according as in former times they were wont to pay unto the temple of Jerusalem. And this was the state of the Jews at this time." Thus was Jerusalem in particu Jar, with its territory, possessed by the Gentiles, becoming Vespasian's property, who sold it to such Gentiles as chose to settle there. I hat Jerusa lem continued in this desolate state, we learn from Dio; for he tells us, that the emperor Adrian rebuilt it, sent a colony thither to inhabit it, and called it Elia. But he altered its situation, leaving out Sion and Beze tha, and enlarging it so as to comprehend Calvary, where our Lord was crucified. Moreover, Eusebius informs us, that Adrian made a law, that no Jew should come into the region around Jerusalem, Hist. xxi. 6. So that the Jews being banished, such a number of aliens came into Jerusa lem, that it became a city and colony of the Romans, Hist. iv. 6. In lat ter times, when Julian apostatized to heathenism, being sensible that the evident accomplishment of our Lord's prophecies concerning the Jewish nation, made a strong impression upon the Gentiles, and was a principal means of their conversion, he resolved to deprive Christianity of this support, by bringing the Jews to occupy their own land, and by allowing them the exercise of their religion, and a form of civil government. For this purpose he resolved to rebuild Jerusalem, to people it with Jews, and to rear up the temple on its ancient foundations, because there only he knew they would offer prayers and sacrifices. In the prosecution of this design, he wrote a letter to the community of the Jews, which is still extant among his other works, inviting them to return to their native country; and for their encouragement, he says to them among other things: "The holy city, Jerusalem, which of many years ye have desired to see inhabited, I will rebuild by mine own labour, and will inhabit it." I sw now, Epist. 25. And now the emperor having made great prepara. tions, began the execution of his scheme with rebuilding the temple; but his workmen were soon obliged to desist, by and immediate and evident interposition of God. Take an account of this matter in the words of Ammianus Marcellinus, an heathen historian, and therefore an author of unsuspected |