it is remarkable, that a separate jurisdiction did depart from all the other tribes several hundred years before Christ's advent ; but that Judah retained it, in a measure, even during the captivity in Babylon; and never completely lost it, till Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the whole Jewish polity was dissolved.
After the restoration of the Jews from Babylon, it was re- vealed to the Prophet Haggai, that the Messiah should come while that temple was standing; and by his presence in it should add greater glory to it, than the former temple, with all its magnificence and peculiar appendages, possessed0.
But that which marked the period with most precision, was the prophecy of Daniel, which declared, that in seventy weeks (of years), or four hundred and ninety years, from the com- mand given by Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem, the Messiah should be cut offd. This determined the time with such accuracy, that the expectation of the Messiah's advent was very general among the Jews, when our Lord made his appearance upon earth.
Thus the fulness of the time was come, because it was the time ordained by God in his eternal counsels, and made known to the world by his holy prophets.]
2. The fittest time —
[If our Lord had come into the world at an earlier period, several valuable purposes would either not have been answered, or not in so eminent a degree. By the delay, there was abundant proof given, how little could be done by reason, ivith all its improvements ; or by the law, with all its sanctions ; or by the most signal judgments and mercies.
Reason had attained its summit. The learning of Greece and Rome had left nothing to be added for the perfecting of the human intellect. Yet what did all their boasted philo- sophy effect? Were the habits and dispositions of men meliorated ? Was the dominion of sin broken, or virtue made more generally prevalent throughout the world? Read the account which St. Paul gives of the heathen world; and judgee.
God has been pleased to republish his law, in a way cal- culated to awe his people, and secure their obedience to it. He had enforced it with the most solemn sanctions ; and had himself written it on tables of stone, in order that it might not any more be mutilated and forgotten, as it had been when left to the uncertainty of oral tradition. And did this succeed? No. The Jew had nothing to boast of above the Gentiles. St. Paul draws their character also, and shews that they, with
c Hagg. ii. 7, 9. a Dan. ix. 24, 25. e Rom. i. 22—32.