Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/217

 the figure and vehicle selected for its communication. And here we may notice that other point about which the disciples inquired, namely. When shall be "the end of the world?" This phrase in their language did not mean that wreck of the physical creation which it signifies in ours. This may be plain from the circumstance of the Apostle saying, "now once in the end of the world hath Christ ap peared." Here it is certain that "the end of the world" did not mean what the terms are commonly understood to signify; but the termination of a period in the history of the Church, or the consummation of the age. If, then, this fact be connected with what has been indicated respecting the temple, we shall at once perceive the relation of each point to the other. Thus the destruction of the temple referred to the termination of the internal life of the Church; and the end of the world to the consummation of those external things, by which the Church was represented among mankind. These, it seems to us, were the events involved in the disciples' inquiries, and to which the Lord's discourse is the recorded answer.

The chapter is generally considered as a double prophecy, which means that it treats of two events under one description. Thus that the literal form of it refers to a display of the Divine power, together with the judgment and destruction brought upon Jerusalem and Judea, when those parts were invaded by Titus, the Roman general, about forty years after the prediction was delivered; and, that "the end of the world "' denotes the termination of the Jewish economy. The fulfilment of the predictions, so far as they related to the calamities which befel the Jewish people, is considered to be complete. The history of the Jewish wars, by Josephus (who, though living near the time