Messias. This prophecy of the desolation of Judea has been so well fulfilled by the occupation of that fine country by the saracens and turks, "the worst of the heathen," as they are stigmatized by the prophet Ezekiel, (vii. 24.) that infidel writers have made this a frequent occasion of their scoffing at the holy scriptures, for having represented this land of promise as the glory of all lands, a land flowing with milk and honey; whereas from the tyranny and ignorance of the turks,* it is now almost a barren wilderness, and as they infer, never could have been capable of supporting the immense population of which the scripture speaks.

The twelfth chapter of Daniel is still more to the purpose, for there the period of time allotted for the indignation upon Israel to continue, is fixed, by determined dates assigned to the commencement and the termination of it. "From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall

* See Baron de Tott's Memoirs.

be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.” These days are, no doubt, to be computed in the usual stile and notation of prophecy, that is, a day for a year. (Ezek. iv. 6.) But as a certain degree of obscurity is essential to the nature of prophecy, the period from whence this computation is to be made, is not very generally agreed upon, and probably will only be known from the time of the ending of the 1290 years,

events.

Bishop Newton is of opinion that the setting up of the abomination of desolation is to be considered as a phrase of general import, and which may be applied to various To the profanation of the temple by Antiochus, when he set up the image of Jupiter Olympius upon the altar of the true God.-To the destruction of the city and temple by the romans, and the misery and desolation of the country that ensued; which is our Saviour's application of it. It may be applied to the building of a temple by the emperor Adrian, to Jupiter Capitolinus, in the

* Newton on the Prophecies, vol. ii. p. 213

F

place where the temple of God had stood; at which time the jews were banished from Or it may

Judea by the most severe edicts. Or it be applied to an event still later, the mohammedans invading and desolating the eastern churches, and converting them into mosques for the worship of the wicked and false prophet Mohammed,* and filling Judea and Jerusalem thenceforward with their antichristian superstition. When the saracens, the bitterest enemies both to the jewish and the christian religion, thus like a flood overran and took possession of the holy land and the church of Christ, then was both the literal and spiritual Jerusalem trodden down of the gentiles," and "the abomination which maketh desolate.” was set up.

But as our Saviour mentioned the abomination of desolation chiefly with a view to afford thereby a remarkable signal to his disciples, and a warning to all the believers to flee for their lives, from the calamities impending oyer the city; he certainly meant by that

*Or Mahomet.

phrase the standards of the roman army. They were prophetically called an abomination, because that term was applied to every thing connected with idolatry, and the standards were in the figure of an eagle, and received divine honors in the roman camps, as a sort of tutelary deities which went before them to battle, and led the way to victory and glory. The import of the warnings was this, that as soon as they should observe the roman standards planted in hostile order, upon boly ground, they must conclude that the predicted ruin of the jewish commonwealth was then near at hand.

The Christians, by a wonderful act of Providence in their favor, in causing the romans to decamp without any visible cause, all escaped out of the city, and fled to Pella in the mountains; but the jews, infatuated to their destruction, crowded in; and were immedi ately shut up by the sudden return of the romans,* and perished in the most unparalleled miseries.

Matt. xxiv. 27.

That our Saviour in the twenty fourth chapter of Matthew is describing the siege of Jerusalem, and not the great day of general judgment, seems probable, from the importance of the subject; which the ancient prophets had represented in the same figurative terms that Jesus here makes use of, as the end of the mosaic world, or dispensation: the ruin of the jewish commonwealth, and the commencement of a new world, under a new covenant:* but from some of the circumstances which he mentions, this is more than probable, and altogether beyond question; although a figurative allusion to the end

*In conformity with this idea, the new testament writers also speak of the fall of Jerusalem and final abolition of the temple service, and the sacrifices offered by the law, (which indeed had all virtually ceased when Christ expired upon the cross,) as the end of the world. (1 Cor. x. 11.) "Us upon whom the ends of the world are come ;"-the words are và tín <wy aiwvwv-fines seculorum. (Heb. ix. 26.) "Now once, in the end of the world hath he appeared;"—izi œuvreλsia tŵv aiúvwv— in consummatione seculorum. And they refer to this event as to the day of the Lord. (Philip. iv. 5. Heb. x. 25,) So the christian dispensation is continually spoken of, both in the pro"the phets and new testament writers, as "the last time," last days," &c.