one will deny that the righteous come unto him.  How then can their eternal salvation be denominated scarce?  Impossible.  How then are the scriptures to be reconciled with our text, when they declare eternal life to be the gift of God—­that we are saved by grace—­that help is laid upon one mighty to save—­that his arm is not shortened that it cannot save; and that the power of God is to be exerted at the resurrection in making them equal unto the angels?  The answer is easily given—­our text has no reference whatever to the immortal world, to a judgment at the end of time, nor to the final condition of the human family; but simply refers to the narrow escape of the christians from the destruction of Jerusalem, when they fled with their lives in their hands to the mountains of Judea for safety.

In the 24th chapter of Matthew Jesus clearly describes the dreadful scene.  He says—­“Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.  Let him which is on the house top not come down to take any thing out of his house.  And woe unto them that are with children and to them that give suck in those days!” [Why?  Because they could not remain in the mountains during the period that the city was besieged by the Romans.] “But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter neither on the Sabbath day.” [Why?  Because in the winter you would perish with cold—­and if your flight from the city be on the Sabbath day, the Jews will stone you to death for traveling more than three miles.] “For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.  And except those days should be shortened there should no flesh be saved;” [Saved from what?  Ans.  From death.] “but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”  That is, for the sake of the christians who fled to the mountains, God shortened the days of the siege.  Let us hear Dr. Adam Clarke, a Methodist Commentator, on this—­“Josephus computes the number of those who perished in the siege at eleven hundred thousand, besides those who were slain in other places; and if the Romans had gone on destroying in this manner, the whole nation of the Jews would in a short time have been entirely extirpated [destroy completely, as if down to the roots]; but for the sake of the elect, the Jews, that they might not be utterly destroyed, and for the christians particularly, the days were shortened.  These partly through the fury of the zealots on the one hand, and the hatred of the Romans on the other; and partly through the difficulty of subsisting in the mountains without houses or provisions, would in all probability, have all been destroyed, either by sword or famine, if the days had not been shortened.”