Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/218

 of the Lord's ministration in the world, does not appear to have known anything of His person or predictions), is generally viewed as an historical testimony to this fulfilment; and, indeed, to be an undesigned commentary in which the prophetical narrative is wonderfully illustrated. Some have thought that the calamities endured by the Jews at that time included all that the prophecy intended, and thence infer "the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ to be a past event." This, however, is not a view of the subject commonly accepted, and, therefore, we shall not attempt its refutation; nor is it our purpose to dwell upon those points of Jewish history in which the prophecy may have received some external fulfilment. No doubt the Lord, in His answer to the disciples inquiry, did refer to that terrible invasion by which the Jewish policy was subverted and overthrown; but we feel assured that that was not the primary object of His teaching in the discourse before us. This, indeed, is no uncommon idea respecting it; for, as it has been said, the narrative is popularly accepted as containing a description of two events, so similar in their general character as to admit of being described in the same words, and thus affording a very special instance of that which Biblical students have designated double prophecy. On this, however, we need not dwell, since it would divert attention, from our more serious point.

The view generally supposed to lie behind the literal, or historical, interpretation to which we have adverted is, that the Lord Jesus Christ will make a second personal advent into the natural world; that He will appear in the clouds with remarkable attendants and phenomena; that every eye will see Him, even those who pierced