The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament, Part 1 · Section 79

The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament · Part 1 · Section 79

p. 60SECTION LXXIX.

And after these MATTH. Chap. XXV. all the Chapter. CHRIST foretelleth the destruction of Ierusalem, the signes and miseries preceding and accompanying it.

THe Talmud tells us that there was a place upon mount Olivet, just in the face of the Temple, where the Priest slew and burnt the red Cow into the ashes of purification, and as he sprinkled the blood, he looked directly upon the Temple door. Middeth Per. 1, &c. This was the last Sermon that Christ made upon mount Olivet, and he makes it as he sits upon that mount, just facing the Temple, Matth. 13.3. And that text that he had taken in tears but two or three dayes ago, weeping over the City and foretelling the destruction of it, Luk. 19.44. he now preacheth upon at large, declaring the misery and foreshewing the forerunners of that destruction.

The aim of his speech, or, to what time and purpose it refers, may be discerned by the question of the Disciples, to which it is an answer. When shall these things be, viz. that one stone stone of the Temple shall not be left upon another? Mark. 13.4. Luk. 21.7. and so it relates plainly to the destruction of the Temple and City. But Matthew hath added; And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? from whence it is conceived by some, that the speech doth aim at the end of the world, and Christs last coming unto judgment. It is true indeed that the close of his speech in Matth. 25. doth speak plainly of the last judgment, and that many of those terrible things mentioned, Matth. 24. may very well typifie the terrours of the last day, but the prime and proper scope of the speech in that 24^th Chapter, is to set forth the destruction of Ierusalem, and the rejection and misery of the Jewish nation; as may be observed by these particulers.

1. Because in Matth. 24.15, 16. He points directly to time and place, when and where these things shall be, viz. when the Temple shall be profaned, then these things come, &c.

2. Especiall consider ver. 34. Verily I say unto you; This generation shall not passe till all these things be fulfilled. This generation, not meaning Generatio Evangelica, as some do harshly interpret it, but as it means in Matth. 23.36. Luk. 11.31, 32. and abundance of other places in the new Testament, the generation then in being.

3. The destruction of Ierusalem, is phrased in Scripture as the destruction of the whole world, Ier. 4.23. Isa. 65.17. and Christs coming to her in judgment, as his coming to the last judgment, Matth. 17.28. Ioh. 21.22. Matth. 19.28. Rev. 1.7, &c.

Therefore those dreadfull things spoken of in ver. 29.30, 31. are but borrowed expressions to set forth the terrors of that judgment the more. Ver. 29. The Sun shall be darkened, &c. shews the decay of all glory, excellency and prosperity in that nation, and the coming in of all sadnesse, misery and confusion: as Isa. 13.10. Ioel 2.10. Ver. 30. Then shall they see the sign of the Sonne of man, &c. Not any visible appearance of Christ, or of the crosse in the clouds [as some have imagined,] but whereas the Jews would not own Christ before for the Sonne of man, or for the Messias, then by the vengeance that he should execute upon them, they and all the world should see an evident signe, that he was so. This therefore is called his coming, and his coming in his kingdom, Matth. 17.28. because this did first declare his power, glory and victory on that nation that had despised him. Ver. 31. He shall send his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet, &c. that is, his Ministers with the Trumpet of the Gospel, to fetch in his elect from among the Gentiles when the Jews were now destroyed and cast off. And the false Christs, and false Prophets that should arise, ver. 5.24. arose in that nation in those last dayes of it, as is abundantly evident both in the new Testament, and in Iosephus: And those warres and rumours of warres, and nation rising against nation, &c. ver. 6, 7. were accomplished not only in the horrid civil warres among the Jews, but also in the great concussions in the Romane Empire, in the warres betwixt Otho and Vitellius, and betwixt Vitellius and Vespasian, [of which the Romane Historians, especially Tacitus is very large] the like to which, there had not been before, even to the sacking of Rome it self, and the burning of the Capitoll.