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PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENT OF THE PROPHECIES, WHICH RESPECT THE GREAT PERIOD OF SEVEN TIMES.

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CHAPTER I.

RESPECTING CHRIST'S PROPHECY DELIVERED FROM THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, AS IMMEDIATELY CONNECTED WITH THE PERIOD OF THE SEVEN TIMES, AND AS ILLUSTRATING THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE TEMPORAL JUDGMENT-DAY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND OF THE FIGURATIVE ADVENT OF CHRIST AT THE CLOSE OF THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES.

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SHORTLY before the passion of our blessed Lord, when, after having addressed a most energetic discourse to the assembled multitude, he was leaving the temple; his disciples, with the not uncommon feeling (as it should seem) of national pride, detained him, that they might point out to his attention the various buildings of that august oratory. Their exultation, however, was soon cut short by a declaration, which his preceding sermon, had they given due heed to it, might well have rendered superfluous.

He had just foretold that all the righteous blood of the martyred prophets should come in vengeance upon the Jewish nation: and he had announced, that, in consequence of it, their house or temple should be left unto them desolate'. While he was uttering

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this denunciation, the attention of his disciples appears to have been wandering to the splendor of the surrounding edifices: so that, unconscious of what he had recently said, they idly called upon him to join in their own ill-timed admiration. This produced a second assertion on his part, still more pointed and definite than the first. Instead of acknowledging the accuracy of their taste, he abruptly declared to them, that the building, which had so distracted their attention from his monitory discourse, should be subverted to the very foundations: and he assured them, that, massy as were the stones which composed it, not one should be left upon another that should not be thrown down staf

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With these words, he quitted the temple: and his disciples silently followed him, wrapped in solemn musings on the awful denunciation which they had just heard. From the temple he led the way to mount Olivet, whence there was a full prospect of the whole edifice: and there he took his seat apart from the multitude. The anxious curiosity of his disciples would now be no longer restrained. Coming to him privately, they eagerly requested a further explanation of the alarming words which he had recently uttered. This produced the remarkable prophecy, which (with some variations) has been handed down to us by three of the evangelists, and which stands most closely connected with the predictions of Daniel and St. John.

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Now, as our Lord's prophecy has been handed down to us, with certain variations, by three different writers; and as those variations consist, not in any contradictory statements, but in an occasionally greater or less degree of copiousness: it will be necessary, before any attempt is made in the way. of explanation, to harmonise the three several accounts of it and to exhibit them jointly in a single discourse. By this plan, we shall bring together, immediately under our eyes, the whole, which Christ is recorded to have uttered.

And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts: and one of his disciples saith unto him; See, what manner of stones and what buildings are here1.

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And Jesus, answering, said unto them: See ye not all these great buildings? Verily I say unto you, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down 2.

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And, as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, the disciples, Peter and James and John and Andrew, came unto him privately, saying: Master, tell us, when shall these things be; and what is the sign, when all these things shall be about to be fulfilled; and

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'Matt. xxiv. 1.
2 Matt. xxiv. 2.

Mark xiii. 1.

Luke xxi. 5.

Mark xiii. 2.

Luke xxi. 6.

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