Christians being exalted to reign with Christ, as a future event, proves that the destruction of Jerusalem was future when the book was written. But we pass from this topic. There is another subject, bearing a close relation, which it will be proper to introduce here. Our Lord repeatedly stated, that, at the time of his coming, he should judge the nations of the earth. The time of his coming was prečminently a time of judgment. He foretold, that when the Son of man should come in his glory, he should sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him should be assembled all nations, and he should render to every man according to his works; Matt. xxv. 31, and xvi. 27, 28. Because the event was very near when St. James wrote, he said, “Behold the Judge standeth before the door;” v. 9. St. Paul said, that Jesus should “judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and kingdom ;” 2 Tim. iv. 1; and St. Peter said, that men must give account to him “that is ready to judge the quick and the dead;” 1 Pet. iv. 5. There will be no dispute, then, that the judgment of the nations was to take place at the time of the coming of the Son of man at the destruction of Jerusalem. Now, it is very plainly to be seen, that the revelator spoke of the same judgment as transpiring in the course of the events that he described. At the sounding of the seventh angel, (as we have shown,) it was announced, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever;” and to this it is added, “And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great, and shouldest destroy them that destroy the earth.” And then, as though the old temple were destroyed simultaneously with this judgment, the revelator adds, in the next words, “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament;” i.e., the spiritual temple of the Gospel was to be opened in place of the temple on Mount Zion, which was about to pass away; Rev. xi. 18. Now, as the revelator foretold this great judgment as about to take place in connection with the establishment of the kingdom of God, is not this an additional proof that the Apocalypse was written previously to the destruction of Jerusalem ż 4. We approach now another class of evidences, which may perhaps be regarded as a little more direct; and yet they do not possess to our mind any greater force than those which we have already submitted. THE Jews are spoken of in the Apocalypse in such a manner as would lead us to conclude that the book was written before the destruction of their city. “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him ;” i. 7. Here is a manifest reference to the Jews among whom, and at whose instigation, the Lord Jesus was crucified. They were involved, according to this passage, in the judgment described by the rev

elator, and which was then shortly to transpire. Could the rev

elator have said this, had not the Apocalypse been written before

the destruction of Jerusalem But again : In the seventh chapter of the Apocalypse, the twelve tribes are spoken of as still being in existence; and for the purpose of representing the Jews

who had been converted to Christianity, and received the acknowl

edgment of God that they were his, the revelator describes twelve thousand persons as being selected from each tribe, who received the seal of God in their foreheads, that they might not be hurt in the approaching calamities. The threatened judgment seems to have been delayed, that all possible preparation for the security of the Christians, amid the coming dangers, might be made, – a circumstance which the revelator describes in his own style: “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the

four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of God in their foreheads.” The number of those that were sealed was one hundred and forty-four thousand, “ of all the tribes of the children of Israel.” The tribes mentioned were the tribes of Juda, of Reuben, of Gad, of Aser, of Nephthalim, of Manasses, of Simeon, of Levi, of Issachar, of Zabulon, of Joseph, of Benjamin. Here is so plain a reference to the tribes as existing at the time, that one would consider it as decisive of the question that the book must have been written before the destruction of the nation. To this it may be said, in reply, that the revelator was perhaps contemplating the tribes retrospectively. But such a supposition conflicts with the plan of the Apocalypse; and moreover, the fourth chapter, which begins the second great division of that book, opens by saying, “Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.” The tribes did not exist as such, after the dissolution of the nation. And why should these tribes have been mentioned in the manner pointed out, if Judea were not involved in the judgment 2 Why should Jewish Christians alone be mentioned ? We confess we know of no answer that can be given to these queries. We find also references in the Apocalypse to the CITy of

JERUSALEM as still standing, at the time that book was written.

Speaking of the two witnesses who had been slain for the testimony of Jesus, the revelator says, “And their dead bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city, which spiritually is called ! Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified;” xi. 8. It was a custom with the sacred writers to call one city by the name of another, to signify some point of resemblance. Thus Jerusalem was called Sodom, after the example of Isaiah i. 10, on account of its wickedness; and it was also called Egypt, perhaps for the same reason. It was spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, i. e., it was called so figuratively or metaphorically. But

to set aside all question that Jerusalem was intended, see the revelator's adjunct, “where also our Lord was crucified.” The bodies of the witnesses, then, were to lie in the streets of Jerusalem. But how could this be, if the city had been destroyed 2 And further on in the description the revelator said, that after three days the spirit of life entered into the witnesses, and they stood upon their feet, and they ascended up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them ; “and the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell,” &c., &c. This is the same city, viz., “where our Lord was crucified;” and how could the revelator have prophesied in this manner, had he not written before the destruction of Jerusalem 2 Closely allied to this argument is the one which is founded on the mention of THE TEMPLE in the Apocalypse. As the revelator draws towards the final catastrophe of the Jews, (on our plan of interpreting the Apocalypse,) after the mighty angel had sworn there should be time no longer, he surveyed the temple doomed to destruction. And as it had been carefully measured and laid out when it was built, as described in the prophecy of Ezekiel, so now is it to be measured preparatory to its destruction. Hence says the revelator, “There was given me a reed like unto a rod : and the angel stood, saying, Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.” Our Lord himself had said, “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles;” Luke xxi. 24. To the outer court, called “the court of the Gentiles,” they had always had access, and consequently there was no need of measuring that ; but the holy temple, and especially the area of the altar, had not been profaned by Gentile feet. They are now to be given up to destruction, as well as the people who worshipped before that holy shrine. “Rise and measure the temple of

God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.” Does not the revelator speak here of the temple as standing in his day ? If so, must not the Apocalypse have been written before the destruction of Jerusalem 2 The efforts of Titus razed the holy building to the ground. Not one stone was left upon another. How, then, can any person explain the revelator's commission to measure the temple, if he wrote after its utter demolition ? But do we not find prophecies in the Apocalypse of the very event—the DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM 2 Does not the revelator quote the very language applied by our Lord to that event 2 his identical metaphors ? Our Lord had said, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days, [he had been speaking of the wars, pestilences, and famines, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.” He thus described the fall of the Jewish powers. And what saith the rev-l elator 2 “The sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth,” &c. &c. The terrified victims of these judgments cried, as the revelator described it, “And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;” and this also is quoted from a passage of our Lord, in which he was speaking of the judgment that would come on the Jews. For when the Jewish women bewailed and lamented him, as he was led forth to crucifixion, he said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold the days are coming in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, &c. &c., Then shall they say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.” How can we, then, avoid the conviction, that the figures employed by the revelator in the sixth chapter of the Apocalypse were designed by him to be applied to the fall of the Jews, and the overthrow of their city ? After our Lord had said