Such is the prophecy, and on it I would remark, first, that what Jesus here foretells concerning Jerusalem did in fact come to pass.  But that was not a fulfillment of his prophecy, but of Daniel’s, who did, as is set down in the 7th chapter of this work, expressly foretell the utter destruction of the city and the temple.  And it was from Daniel that Jesus obtained his know-ledge of the approach of that event.  For he expressly cites Daniel, Matthew xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14; and you will please to observe reader, that he refers to him in this quotation from Luke, in the words, “these be the days of vengeance that all things which are written, may be fulfilled.  So that in foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem he did no more than any Jew of that age, who attentively read their Scriptures, could have done, and. been no prophet either.

2.  It would have been better for his reputation as a Prophet, if he had stopped short where Daniel stopped.  For what he goes on to foretell has not been fulfilled.  For he proceeds to say, that “there shall be signs in the sun, and the moon, and the stars,” &c.  All this is taken from the 2nd chapter of Joel, who says that such things shall take place; not, however, at the destruction of Jerusalem, but in “the latter days,” at the time of the restoration of Israel.  So that here Jesus has been rather unlucky.  For, in truth, there were no signs in the sun, and the moon, and the stars, at that time; neither was there upon earth any “great distress of nations,” except in Judea.  Nor were “the powers of heaven” shaken.  Certainly, they did not see Jesus “coming in the clouds of heaven, with power, and great glory;” and most assuredly, that generation did pass away, and many others since, and “all these things” have not been fulfilled.

I know very well, and have very often smiled over the contrivances by which learned Christians have endeavoured to save the credit of this prophecy.  They say that—­it is a figurative prophecy relating entirely to the destruction of Jerusalem, which did in fact take place in that generation; that the expressions about the “distress of nations,” and “the sea and waves roaring,” the “signs in heaven,” &c., are merely poetical; and that the shaking of the powers of heaven was merely the shaking and pulling-down the stones of the temple, figuratively called heaven; and that the glorious coming of Jesus “in the clouds of heaven, with power, and great glory,” meant merely, that he sent Titus, and the Romans to destroy, Jerusalem, or perhaps might have been an invisible spectator himself.

The reader will easily see, that all this is nonsense.  And the Commentator Grotius, after meddling a great while in this troublesome business, at length ventures to insinuate, that God might have suffered Jesus to be in a mistake about the time of his second coming, and to tell the Apostles what he did, for the sake of keeping up their spirits!