are other prophecies which show that with { hypostatic union. The eternal Son, as their national conversion to Christianity | God, by his omniscience, and as man, by will be associated all that is most glorious | knowledge imparted to him, knows per- in the future Church of God. fectly the day and the hour of the future Ver. 31.—Heaven and earth shall pass | judgment. But Christ as man, and as the away: but my words shall not pass away. | Messenger from God to men, did not so Here is @ distinct prediction that the present | know it as to be able to reveal it to men. structure of the universe will pass away; | The ambassador, if he is asked concerning that is, that it will be changed, that it | the secret counsels of his sovereign, may will perish, as far as its present state and | truly answer that he knows them not so as condition are concerned; but only that | to communicate them to others. For as an it may be refashioned in a more beauti- | ambassador he only communicates those fal form. ‘We look for new heavens and | things which are committed to him by his a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous- | sovereign to deliver, and not those things ness” (2 Pet. iii. 13), With this declara- | which he is bidden to keep secret. tion of our blessed Lord all the discoveries Vers. 33—37.—T hese exhortations, which of science coincide. Astronomy and geo- | gather up in a succinct form the practical logy alike concur in the conclusion that | bearing of the parallel passages and parables the whole system of the universe is moving | in St. Matthew, must not be understood as onwards to its change. Our blessed Lord | implying that our Lord’s eoming in judg did but affirm that which is demonstrated | ment would be during the lifetime of his by science. But my words shall not puss | disciples. The preceding words would away; not merely the words which with | teach them plainly enough that the actual his full self-consciousness he had just | time of this coming was hidder from them, uttered respecting Jerusalem, but all his | But the intention was that, while by the other words—all the revelation of God, all | certainty of the event their faith and hope the words of him who is the Truth. would be quickened, by the uncertainty of Ver. 32.—But of that day or that hour | the time thvy might be left in a continual knoweth no one, not even the angels in | state of watclfulness and prayer. Accord- heaven, neither the Son, butthe Father. He | ing to the Jewish reckoning, there were who from all eternity las decreed the time | only three watches—namely, the first watch, when this day is to come, is pleased to hide it ; from sunset to 10 p.m.; the second watch, in the hidden depths of bis own counsels. | from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.; and the third watch, But the eternal Son, and tie Holy Spirit, | from 2 a.m. to sunrise. But after the es- both alike one with the Father, are of his | tablishment of the Roman power’in Juda, counsels. They are not excluded from this | these watches were divided into four; and knowledge; they, equally with the Father, | were either described as the firet, second, know the day and the hour of the end, since | third, and fourth respectively; or, as here, they are of the same substance, power, and | by the terms even, bevinning at six and majesty. Why, then, does St. Mark here | ending at nine; midnight, endingat twelve ; add, “neither the Son”? The answer is | cockcrowing, ending at three; and morning, surely to be found in tbe great truth of the | ending at six.
HOMILETICS.
Vers. 1, 2.—The downfall of the temple. Our Lord’s ministry in the temple was now over. Within those precincts he had taught the teachabie, be had rebuked the selfish and profane, he had received the homage of the children, he had healed the afflicted, and he had denounced and warned the unfaithful and the hypocritical. How strange the contrast between the early days, when Jesus had taken his place in the midst of the rabbis, “both hearing them, and asking them questions,” and these later days, when the same edifice witnessed his keen and truceless conflicts with the leaders of the nation, whose errors he exposed and whose vengeance he incurred! It was as Jesus left the gorgeous and consecrated building that his disciples, with national pride and affection, pointed out to his eyes the magnificence of the temple, the stupendous stones of which it was composed, aud the costly gifts with which it was adorned, Upon this suggestion, Jesus uttered the prediction, whic be could not bave uttered without emotions of disappointment and, distress, “ Seest thou these great buildings ? there shall not be left here one stone upon anothei, which shall not be thrown down.”
L Noraine }aRTHLY AND HUMAN, HOWEVER #TATELY AND SACRED, I8 IMPERISHABLE,
xe \ cH, xm. 1—37.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING 10 SY. MARK. 203 I TR i a ee
It was, no doubt, a splendid spectacle to which his disciples directed the gaze of Jesus, ‘They stopped to cast upon it one last lingering gaze, and one of them was eager to call his attention to its goodly stones and splendid offerings—those nine gates overlaid with gold and silver, and the one of solid Corinthian brass yet more precious; those graceful and towering porches; those bevelled blocks of marble, forty cubits long and ten cubits high, testifying to the toil and munificence of so many generations; those double cloisters and stately pillars; that lavish adornment of sculpture and arabesque ; those alternate blocks of red and white marble, recalling the crest and hollow of the sea-waves; those vast clusters of golden grapes, each cluster as large as a man, which twined their splendid luxuriance over the golden doors. They would have him gaze with them on the rising terraces of courts—the court of the Gentiles, with its monolithic columns and rich mosaic; above this, the flight of fourteen steps which led to the court of the women; then the flight of fifteen steps which led up to the court of the priests; then, once more, the twelve steps which led to the final platform, crowned by the actual holy, and holy of holies, which the rabbis fondly compared for its shape to a couchant lion, and which, with its marble whiteness and gilded roofs, looked like a glorious mountain whose snowy summit was gilded by the sun” (Farrar). Majestic, however, as was the edifice, sacred as were its purposes, ennobling as were its associations, the temple at Jerusalem was not indestructible. All things finding their foundation upon this changing earth, all things reared and fashioned by human hands are transitory and perishing. Nothing continueth in one stay. “The solemn temp, like “the great globe itself,” are destined to decay and destruction. The material perishes, and that which is spiritual alone abides.