fectly safe. Not a liair of their heads shall fall to the ground. Not one bone of Christ's mystical body shall be broken. There was an ark for Noah, in the day of the flood. There was a Zoar for Lot, when Sodom was destroyed. There shall be a hiding-place for all believers in Jesus, when the wrath of God at last bursts on this wicked world. Those mighty angels who rejoiced in heaven when each sinner repented, shall gladly catch up the people of Christ to meet their Lord in the air. That day no doubt will be an awful day, but believers may look forward to it -without fear.
In the day of judgment true Christians shall at length be gathered together. The saints of ever}^ age, and every tongue shall be assembled out of every land. All shall be there, from righteous Abel down to the last soul that is converted to God,— from the oldest patriarch down to the little Infant that just breathed and died. Let us think what a happy gathering that will be, when all the family of God are at length together. If it has been pleasant to meet one or two saints occasionally on earth, how much more plesant will it be to meet a " multitude that no man can number V Surely we may be content to carry the cross, and put up with partings for a few years. We travel on towards a day, when we shall meet to part no more.
These verses teach us, in the third place, that tmtil Christ returns to this earth, the Jews will ahvays remain a separate people. Our Lord tells us, " This generation shall not j)ass, till all these things be fulfilled." ''••"
* I see no other interpretation of these much controverted words, " this generation," which is in the least satisfactory, and is not open
324 EXPOSITORY TnOUGHTS.
The continued existence of the Jews as a distinct nation, is undeniably a great miracle. It is one of those evidences of the truth of the Bible which the inlidcl can never overthrow. Without a land, without a king, without a government, scattered and dispersed over the world for eighteen hundred years, the Jews are never absorbed among the people of the countries where they live, like Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Grermans, but " dwell alone." Nothing can account for this but the finger of God. The Jewish nation stands before the world, a crushing answer to infidelity, and a living book of evidence that the Bible is true. But we ought not to regard the Jews only as witnesses of the truth of Scrip- true, We should see io them a continual pledge, that the Lord Jesus is coming again one day. Like the sacrament of the Lord's supper, they witness to the reality of the second advent, as well as of the first. Let us remember this. Let us see in every wandering Jew a proof that the Bible is true, and that Christ will one day return.
Finally, these verses teach us, that our Lord's pre- dictions will certainly he fvlfilled. He says, ^^ heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
Our Lord knew well the natural unbelief of human
to very serious objections. The word "generation" admits of the sense in which I have taken it, and seems to me to be used in that sense in Matt. xii. 45, xvii. 17, and xxiii. 36 ; Luke xvi. 8, and xvii. 25 ; and Phililpp. ii. 15. Tlie view that I have propounded is not new. It is adopted by Mede, Paroeus, Flacius Illyricus, Calovius, Jansenius, Due Veil, Adam Clarke, and Stier. Chrysotom, Origen, and Theo- phylact consider " this generation" to mean " true believers."