that the Son of Man should again come, even before that present generation should have passed away; that, when he did come, he would find them as supine and careless as they were at that moment ; and that, unless they repented, his coming would issue in their utter destruction.
This seems to be the obvious import of the words. But, as the same expressions are used in a subsequent discourse, where they are blended with others relating to the day of judgment, we shall not confine them to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, but take them as declaring in general, I. The state of mankind at large —
We are here told what was their state in the days
of old —
[In the days of Noah and of Lot the great mass of man- kind were in a state of carnal enjoyment, of criminal security, and of contemptuous unbelief.
Their business and their pleasures altogether engrossed their minds : ' they ate and drank, and formed connexions, and got fortunes, and built houses, and planted grounds, and consulted their own happiness and comfort in the way they liked best.' This was their entire employment, and the great object of their lives : if they could but make themselves happy and comfortable in their respective stations, it was all they cared for.
Had they pursued these things in subserviency to higher and better things, there would have been no blame imputed to them : for, the eating, and drinking, and marrying, and buying, and selling, and planting, and building, were not wrong in themselves: but the evil of this state consisted in its being their chief, if not their only, occupation. Had we been told, that, in addition to these things, they wept, they fasted, they prayed, they turned to God, and served the Lord with their whole hearts, we should not have grudged them one atom of their enjoyments, or have thought the worse of them for their worldly occupations. But God was not in all their thoughts ; eternity was hid from their view ; the things of time and sense engaged their whole attention : they took for granted that they had nothing to fear from the hands of God, and therefore they were under no anxiety to obtain his favour. In a word, they regarded their bodily welfare, but had no concern at all about their souls.
But this security of theirs did not proceed from ignorance: the antediluvians were taught by Noah, for one hundred and twenty years together, that God would punish their supineness,