"City of Peace] with your doctrine, and intend to

66

bring this man's blood upon us.”—The High Priest and Council, as he would have had it be believed, (and perhaps they really were so) were extremely solicitous for the peace of the city, which, according to them, was endangered by the doctrine of the Apostles. In this instance, as in the former, the language employed was the Hebrew; and we may infer that the Article was introduced into the Greek translation to mark the turn and force of the original expression: and, therefore, the inference remains no way weakened, that the presence of the Article in Gal. iv. 26, with the word Jerusalem, seems to indicate that the believing Galatians had heard of the Jerusalem which descendeth from heaven.

Respecting the evidence furnished by this epistle, of its being written later than the Apocalypse, the reader will have observed, that it is put merely as a question in the title of this section. Candour required this; for it must not be concealed that the Jews antiently employed the term "Jerusalem which is above," when speaking of the future happy days that were to be brought to Israel under the reign of the Messiah: Thus in Zohar fol. 120. col. 478. "Rabbi Aba saith, “Luz is Nby our JERUSALEM WHICH IS “ABOVE, which the holy blessed God gives for a

"possession, where blessings are given by his hand "in a pure land: but to an impure land no blessings "to be at all. Midras Till. on Psal. 122. · Je"rusalem is built as a city that is compact together." "R. Jochanan saith, The holy blessed God said, "I will not go into JERUSALEM WHICH IS ABOVE "until I have gone into Jerusalem which is below." -It is undeniable, then, that the expression in Gal. iv. 26 might be employed by the Apostle without any direct allusion to the Apocalypse; and that "the Jerusalem which is above," may, as is generally stated by some commentators, be considered as referring to the church of God under the Gospel, and the privileges of Christians and indeed that the expression has such a signification is so evident, that I would not have quoted this text were it not that in ch. v. 19-21 the Apostle employs words which seem to indicate, pretty plainly, that he had the Apocalypse before him, or its language full in his recollection, when he wrote this epistle; and, if so, I think it may be inferred, that in employing the term "Jerusalem above" he meant not only to remind those whom he was addressing of the privileges that now belong to them, but also of the future blessings reserved for them after the resurrection; for, as the Apostle says elsewhere, "if in this life only we have hope, we are of “all men most miserable;" and he reminds the

Galatians, in the concluding chapter of this epistle, that he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting, and adds, "Let "us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap if we faint not."

In the other passage to which I have alluded in ch. v. 19-21 the Apostle, though not so directly as in some other of his writings, lays before the Galatians an amplified, accommodated transcript from Rev. xxi. 7, 8; for several of the works of the flesh which he enumerates, are the same as those which, in the Apocalypse, exclude from the heavenly inheritance, as fornication and idolatry, but especially paguaxeía, rendered "witchcraft" in the common version, and its corresponding term φαρμακεῦσι (or according to several manuscripts paguaxois) which (in Rev. xxi. 8) the common version renders "sorcerers." In both places the words are, in my opinion, used figuratively, and, in this sense, mean sophisticated doctrines, sophisticators of the truth.

I also strongly suspect that part of the three verses, of which I speak, should be read in parenthesis thus:-" But manifest are the works of "the flesh (such as these, fornication, uncleanness, "lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, &c.) which I 'forewarn you, as I have in time past, that they "who practise such things shall not inherit the

66

kingdom of GOD." I am led to this view of the

passage, from observing, that some kind of emphasis is intended to be laid on pavɛpà, “mani"fest;" for, if not, that word is of no use. To say, simply, "Now the works of the flesh are "manifest, which are, fornication, uncleanness," &c. is the same thing as to say, "the works of the flesh are, fornication, uncleanness," &c. But to "MANIFEST are the works of the flesh, which, "I forewarn you, as I have before done, that they "who do such things shall not INHERIT the kingdom

say,

of God," is to refer them to some open record, in which it is expressly declared or shown or manifested, that they who do such things are excluded from that inheritance. Such I think is probably the intention of the passage; and if so, the association that has been pointed out, of these works excluding from the inheritance, will go far to prove that the Apostle had in his eye the passage that has been referred to in the Apocalypse. And this is rendered the more likely from the circumstance that he has made the same use of this passage in other epistles.

§ 11. Of Evidence furnished by the Epistles to the Thessalonians.

In the first Epistle to the Thessalonians are several expressions, which, if we believe that the writer often has allusions to the Apocalypse in

his other epistles, we can hardly have reason to doubt have reference to the contents of that prophecy. These believers had turned to GOD from idols, to serve the living and true GOD, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, JESUS who delivereth us from ris ὀργῆς, τῆς ἐρχομένης THE WRATH, THE COMING [wrath] ch. i. 10. That is, they were not of the number of those who shall call to mountains and rocks to hide them from ris pyns THE WRATH of the Lamb, when, the great day, rõs ópyñs autoỡ OF HIS WRATH, IS COME. Again and again he speaks of the coming of the Lord, JESUS CHRIST. ii. 19, iii. 13. In the latter verse this coming is, “ with all τῶν ἁγίων αὐτοῦ THE HOLY ONES of him (his saints)"-see Rev. ch. xx. 4: and, in the fourth chapter, he again brings to their recollection the Lord's coming, as a matter of consolation respecting those who sleep in JEsUs: -"them who sleep in JEsUs will God bring with "him: for this we certify to you, BY THE WORD "OF THE LORD, that we the living who remain at "the coming of THE LORD, shall not precede them "who are asleep. For THE LORD himself will "descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice

66

66

of an Archangel, and with the trumpet of GOD, "and the dead in CHRIST shall rise first: then we,

the living, who remain, shall be caught up together "with them in the clouds to meet THE LORD in the