Although the learned author believes that the foregoing argument removes an objection-" that it is doing a violence to our Saviour's discourse, to suppose that he passes from one subject to another where there is nothing to indicate such a transition*"-he next adduces, what he denominates, "a perfectly parallel instance of such a transition," from the 24th chapter of St Matthew's Gospel. In that chapter then, in which our Lord commences his prophetic discourse on the destruction of Jerusalem, we are to find an instance of transition without any indication of its having taken place. The design, when committed to writing, strikes one as so utterly absurd, that the question forces itself upon the mind-"How could a man of learning engage in such a project?" Dr Wiseman, however, thus discusses the matter:

"It is acknowledged that the concluding portion [of our Lord's discourse] is referable only to the final judgment; now where does the transition between the two occur? Why, some of the best commentators, as Kuinoel and after him Bloomfield, place it at the forty-third verse of the twentyfourth chapter. Now if you read that passage attentively, you will be struck with the similarity of this transition to the one I have laid down for the sixth chapter of St John. In the preceding verse (42) our Lord sums up the substance of the foregoing instruction, just as he does in John vi. 47. Watch ye, therefore, because ye know not at what hour your Lord will come.' 'Amen, amen, I say unto you, He that believeth in me hath everlasting life.' He then resumes apparently the same figure drawn from the necessity of watching a house, as he does that of bread in our case;

* Lectures, p. 45.

but then the conclusion of the discourse points out, that the coming of the Son of man' now mentioned (v. 44) is no longer the moral and invisible one spoken of in the preceding section (vv. 30, 37), but a real and substantial advent in the body (xxv. 31)." (pp. 45—47.)

Now when we consider the acknowledged difficulty respecting the interpretation of the 24th and 25th chapters of St Matthew's Gospel, the first impression, arising from the proposed comparison, is that we are engaging in an attempt to extract light from obscurity. On another account, indeed, the reference to the chapters of St Matthew is fortunate; for those chapters involve not, if I rightly recollect, any points in dispute between Roman Catholics and Protestants. But be all this as it may, there is a fact to be stated, in the outset of these remarks, which does not augur well for the cause which Dr Wiseman has here in hand. Estius, a commentator of great name in the Roman Church-instead of believing, with the learned lecturer, that the transition, from the destruction of Jerusalem to the tribulation of the last day, takes place at the end of the 42d verse -holds that the said transition takes place at the 29th verse, or sooner*. Moreover, this dif

* Estius, on Matt. xxiv. 29, thus writes: "Notandum totum hunc sermonem Christi esse propheticum, ideoque non mirandum si multum habeat obscuritatis, et subitò transeat ab uno ad aliud remotius et principalius; quod frequens est in Prophetis. Ita Christus hîc, vel in parte præcedenti, transitum facit a tribulatione Judaica gentis ad tribulationem universalium gentium per totum mundum futuram in fine sæculi."

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ference of opinion, between Estius and himself, will perhaps be admitted as some excuse for those Protestant commentators who do not happen to agree in their views of the same point. But to proceed: In the last extract from the Lectures, we find the learned author asserting, that "some of the best commentators"-meaning, as he elsewhere informs us, exclusively Protestant commentators"—place the point of separation "at the 43d verse." In his Discourses, he adopts still stronger language. "All the most accurate commentators," he there says, "place the point of separation at the 43d verse of the 24th chapter;" and after reciting the 42d and 43d verses, he adds; "You perceive no transition between these verses, and yet these commentators place the transition exactly in the middle of them*" Now, in order that the reader may clearly understand what is going on, I here affirm, in direct opposition to Dr Wiseman, that those very commentators (with the exceptions which will be specified) have placed the point of separation immediately after the 41st verse-and not after the 42nd. The validity or invalidity of the reference to St Matthew, as the learned author is well aware, entirely depends upon the fact, whatever it may be, respecting those commentators. Let therefore the fact be ascertained.

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* Discourses, Vol. 1. p. 143.

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Bengelius-a man whose labours on the Greek Testament have secured for him that respect to which he is so justly entitled-divided the text of his edition (1734) into paragraphs, corresponding to the matters successively treated of. His paragraphs were formed with great care and deliberation; and his arrangement of them may in any case be appealed to, as that of a most learned, intelligent and impartial critic. In the edition of Bengelius, then, the passage under consideration assumes the following shape:

"38. For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39. And knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

40. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 41. Then two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

42. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. 43. But know this, that if the good-man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. 44. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh."

Here we have the break immediately after the 41st verse; and on a diligent examination of editions of the Greek Testament, in which paragraphs are given, the break is either there, or not till several verses afterwards. An edition, with the separation after the 42d verse, would be no common curiosity in its way.

The

If we turn to versions, we find Tyndale'swhich appeared in 1526-divided into chapters and paragraphs. In his version, the division takes place immediately after the 41st verse; the 42d being the commencement of a new paragraph. So also in the authorized English Bible of 1611, a new paragraph is marked at the 42d verse. authorized version, as given in a recent American edition in which particular attention has been paid to the paragraphs, presents the portion, from v. 32 to v. 51, the end of the chapter, without interruption. The 42d verse begins a paragraph in the versions of Dr Daniel Scott, Archbishop Newcome, Dr Campbell and Mr Wakefield....The Mons (French) version, from the Latin Vulgate, exhibits the whole passage, from v. 36 to v. 44 inclusive, under one head, thus distinguishedDernier jour imprevu. L'un pris, l'autre laissé. Veiller à toute heure; in which title, Veiller à toute heure corresponds exactly to v. 42, Watch therefore-and so, points out that verse as the beginning of the last subdivision. In like manner, Beausobre makes his paragraph extend from v. 36 to v. 44; with the same indications of subdivisions which distinguish the Mons version. The Spanish version of Cypriano de Valera presents a new paragraph, commencing with the 42d verse. The Italian version of Diodati has no distinction

of paragraphs. But not to dwell upon translations by men of other times, whether long or