admitted by the learned; and this general agreement among the competent judges of such a point, may be received as a pretty safe pledge of the accuracy of their conclusion.1

With regard to the other phrases, the writers of the Talmud inform us that the last days are when the Messiah shall come. 12 And in commenting on these words of Moses,- Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days, they remark, in explanation, that he called them, in order to reveal to them the end, when Messiah should come.' 4 The treatise whence these two examples are taken, is generally considered one of the oldest parts of the Talmud, as ancient as the beginning of the third century; and it is worthy of

6

1 Among the critics who have either maintained or expressly admitted, that such was the ancient Jewish usage of the phrase, this age, and the future age, &c. are the following: Lightfoot, in his Horae Hebraicæ ; Buxtorf, in his Lexicon Chaldaicum, Talmudicum, et Rabbinicum; H. Witsius, in his Miscellanea, aud in Meuschenii Nov. Test. ex Talmude Illustratum; Millius in his edition of Rhenferdii Opera; Schoettgenius, in his Horæ Hebraicæ et Talmudicæ; Gill, in his Commentary on the New Testament; according to Professor Stuart, Wahl and Brettschneider, in their respective Lexicons; Schleusner, in his Lexicon in Novum Testamentum ; Bertholdt, in his Christologia Judæorum ; Dr. A. Clark, in his Commentary on the New Testament.

About the year 1700, Rhenferdius, a Dutch Professor, well versed in Rabbinical reading, attempted to disprove the fact of this ancient Jewish usage, A controversy ensued between him and Witsius; but the decision of succeeding writers, is against Rhenferdius. See Schoettgenii Dissertatio ii, ad calcem Hora Heb. et Talmad. § 2, 3, 4.

2 Schoettgenii Hora Heb. &c. in Acts ii. 16.

3 Gen. xlix. 1.

4 Schoettgenii Hora Heb. &c, in Acts ii. 16.

notice, that the language seems to express the utmost confidence that the last days, and the end, were the same with the time of Messiah. Again; we read in Genesis, 'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.'5 On this passage, the Jerusalem Targum, written perhaps, about A. D. 700, remarks that the promise shall be fulfilled in the end of days, that is, in the time of the king Messiah.'1 Once more while pointing out the circumstances of the expected Messiah's advent, the Talmud observes, that whether the Jews repent or not, they shall be delivered when the end comes, [or, the reign of Messiah ;] accordingly as it is written in Isaiah, A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. I the Lord will hasten it in HIS time. (Isa. lx. 22.)2

VIII. Such, then, was the religious phraseology, current, for many centuries, in Judea; and in justice to our Lord and his disciples, we ought to bear in mind, that amidst this prevailing usage, they habitually spoke and wrote. They of course, adopted, to a greater or less extent, the peculiar style of their own country and times; as we adopt that of ours. In the language to which they were accustomed, there were but two great and distinguished ages. The age then existing, the present age, so called, began at Moses, and was to continue till the time when Messiah should

5 Gen. iii. 15. 1 Schoettgenii Hore Heb. &c. in Acts ii. 16. 2 Ditto.

establish his kingdom with power upon earth, by the overthrow of his enemies, whosoever they might prove to be. This expected event was, according to the common mode of expression, to mark precisely the end: that is, the end of the former course of things, the completion of one of those entire and distinct periods. With regard to the old series of affairs, it was the last time, the end of all things; for then was to begin a new era, the future age of the Messiah, so called. And the momentous period of transition to this long expected and glorious scene, must have been a subject of as much interest with those who lived before, as the time of the commencement of the Millenium, is now, with those who look for a personal reign of Christ upon earth for a thousand years. Accordingly, that dividing point of time, then so near at hand, is more frequently perhaps, than any other, brought to view, in the writings of the New Testament.

We should, however, observe that it was perfectly natural for the apostles sometimes to speak of the end of the age, as including the whole of its latest generation; just as people, at the present day, often speak even of the thousand years of the Millenium, as being in the end of the material world, notwithstanding they hold that this end will, strictly speaking, take place at the close of that season, and be confined to a single day perhaps to a single moment. So, likewise, we say that Saturday is the end of the week; although we do not mean that the week actually terminates till the very last hour,or minute, of that day. In all these cases, the term in question is used comparatively, and with more or less latitude, in proportion to

the greater or less extent of the general whole to which it refers. It was in this comparative sense, that St. Paul said that the sacrifice or death of Christ was in the end of the age, and that the ends of the age had come upon himself and his contemporary brethren. More than fifteen centuries of that age had, in fact, passed away, and only thirty or forty years remained; so that the times of which he spoke were indeed, in the end, according to a common form of expression, though the end itself had not yet arrived. But when the disciples asked Christ, what should be the sign of his coming and of the end of the age, it is evident that they used the term in the absolute sense, referring to a single point of time as the close. So our Saviour understood them, as appears from his answer. In this sense, also, he taught the multitude, by the parables of the tares and of the net, what should take place in the end of the age; when a separation was to be made between the false and the true professors of his gospel.

The same course of remark must be applied also to the other expressions which we have mentioned. Compared with the entire duration of so long an age, the concluding space of thirty or forty years, was naturally and with propriety called, the last days. Accordingly, St. Peter and St. Paul apply that appellation to the times when Christ was manifested for the people, when God spoke to them by his Son, and when the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles at PenBut in a sense more restricted, the last

tacost.

1 Matt. xiii. 40, &c. ; 49, &c,

days and the last time, were those which began within four or five years of the end, continuing onwards till the very close itself. Thus, St. Jude, who is supposed to have written within this period, represented that the apostles had prophesied of it as the last time, in distinction from their own, which was but a few years before.

And St. John, in an epistle written as some critics judge, still more nearly to the end, taught his brethren that theirs in praticular was the last time, because that the antichrists which had been foretold, had already come.

ÍX. We have now illustrated the several texts in which the form of expression is manifestly occasioned by the peculiar usage that has been pointed out. But, as might be expected, there are other passages in the New Testament, which seem to be affected by that Jewish idiom. In some, the allusion is so much obscured by our translators, that it can be traced only in the original. From the many in which it is preserved, either partially or entirely in our common version, we will select a few, and submit them for consideration. St. Paul represents that believers had already tasted of the powers of the age to come : 'those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the world [literally age] to come.'" Does he not here mean, of the gospel dispensation ? He also speaks of the peculiar manifestation of God's

1 Heb. vi. 4, 5.