1 Peter ii. 9, our translators have adopted "generation" as the rendering, not of yevea, but of yevos-"ye are a chosen generation," &c. This shows, however, the extended sense in which they were accustomed to use the word "generation." Again, when our Lord says in Matthew xii. 45: "Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation:" the words which immediately precede these refer to an event not even yet accomplished in the history of Israel. At present they are more and more becoming like a house "empty, swept, and garnished." They are not at present marked by that outrageous flagrancy of evil which caused even the Gentiles to marvel. On the contrary, many of them are distinguished by refinement, amiability, philanthropy, and the like. Yet they are still like a house empty— however swept and garnished. The Spirit of Christ is not there. Therefore the seven-fold power of Satan will occupy them at the last, and then we shall see the end of that rebellious people in the Antichristian blasphemy of the last days. No text, therefore, can more clearly show the extended sense of "generation."

Other examples might be given, but these that have been adduced suffice to shew that yevea (generation) is continually used to denote a class, or race, or family of persons, marked by certain moral characteristics whether for good or evil. The passing away of that crooked and perverse generation, whose evil energies had for so many centuries prolonged the iron age of wickedness, was anxiously expected by the disciples. They expected the passing away of the evil generation to be succeeded by the coming in of that new generation that should fill the earth with righteousness and peace; and they had hoped that the time was nigh. But the Lord corrected this thought. He told them that the present evil generation should not pass away and be succeeded by the new, until all the things of which He had spoken should first be fulfilled.

And is there anything more evidenced by facts than the continuance of the age of evil? What if Israel were at this moment to be restored to Jerusalem, and were there allowed to manifest what morally they are? Would not the pride of Pharasaic ritualism and the loose latitudinarianism of the Sadducee, and the godlessness of the Herodian, who worshipped the secular power and made secular progress everything, and the presence of rulers not less fox-like than Herod, nor less unrighteous than Pilate, mark that the generation of wickedness had not passed away-nay, that it is still dominant in the earth?

The Scripture recognises two generations only-first, the generation of wickedness whose energies have formed the age of evil-secondly, that coming generation whose energies shall fill the millennial earth (the oikovμevŋ μeλλovoa of which the Apostle in the Hebrews speaks) with righteousness and peace. Accordingly, we find these two generations frequently contrasted in the Scripture. See for example Isaiah lxv. 15: "The Lord God shall SLAY THEE, (the last representatives of the generation of wickedness are addressed), and call His servants by another name." See also Psalm cii. 18: "This shall be written for THE GENERATION TO COME, and THE PEOPLE THAT SHALL BE CREATED shall praise the Lord." Here "the generation to come" is equivalent to "the people that shall be created." See also Psalm xxii. 30: "A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come and declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that He hath done this." If these passages be examined with their context, it will be seen that there is in all of them a reference to the passing away of the old, and the coming in of another generation, called "the generation to come"-" the people that shall be created”—“ a people that shall be born"-called by Jehovah by "another name."

The disciples found no difficulty in understanding these words of their Lord. They had asked respecting the end of the age. They recognised in this a reply to their question. The generation of wickedness, whose energies formed the age of evil, should not pass away, till all the things of which He had spoken should be fulfilled.

The two following passages-the one from Theophylact, the other from Chrysostom-respect the use of the word yevea. They both reject the limited sense of "generation." The extract from Chrysostom is the more valuable because he contends so decidedly for the moral sense of yevea. If these writers had only substituted yerea απιστων for γενεα TOTWV-that is, if they had understood γενεα to refer, not to "the generation of the righteous," but to "the generation of the wicked," these statements would have been unexceptionable.

The words of Theophylact are-commenting on this passage in Matthew—γενεαν ενταυθα λεγει, ου την τότε ούσαν, αλλά την των πιστων· ὡσανει τουτο λεγων· ου μη παρελθῇ ἡ γενεα των πιστών, n εὡς οὗ ταυτα παντα γενηται. “By generation in this place, he means not that which then was, but the generation of the faithful,

"Whose coming (that of the Lawless One) is according to the energy of Satan."

"Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of
the Lord."

"Be ye also patient: stablish your hearts for the
coming of the Lord draweth nigh."
"Where is the promise of His coming?"

"The coming of the day of God."

It will be observed that the expression "coming" (πaρovσiα) of our Lord is used many times in the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, and, with the exception of the passage before us, no attempt is made to destroy the force of the expression. Is it possible that the Apostle should in these two Epistles use this expression six times, and always, as is admitted by all, in application to the Lord's personal appearing, and that suddenly in the second Epistle, whilst pursuing the same train of thought, he should alter the sense of "coming," and give to it a meaning not only different from that in which he had ever before used it, but one which in truth it is incapable of bearing, for the word παρουσια when applied to a person never can and never does mean anything but personal arrival or "presence."

It would, I repeat, be a strange thing if the word napovσia should παρουσια denote the personal presence of our Lord in every other place where it is used in these two Epistles, and that this verse should be the solitary exception. And this would be the more strange in a chapter that avowedly has for its peculiar subject the personal coming of our Lord, which is in this chapter treated of in relation to an error into which the Thessalonians had fallen respecting it. The chapter commences with the words, "now I beseech you, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him." These words are allowed by all, to refer to the personal Advent of the Lord. The Thessalonians had fallen into the error of expecting the coming of the Lord without expecting first the coming and triumph of that Lawless One whom the coming of the Lord is to destroy. The Apostle in this chapter undertakes to correct this error, and to place the coming of the Lord in its proper relation to the coming of the Lawless One. Is it then conceivable that with this view in writing the chapter, he should conclude it without any reference at all to the personal coming of the Lord? For if the words "brightness of His coming" do not indicate a personal appearing of the Saviour, then a chapter which avowedly undertook to set

the personal appearing of the Lord in its right relation, both to the events that should precede, and the events that should accompany such appearing, would conclude without giving us any instruction at all respecting His personal coming; for it would (on Dr. Brown's hypothesis) direct our minds to a non-personal coming altogether different in time and in circumstance. Is this conceivable ?

And let any one who reads the chapter with unprejudiced mind, say whether the impression left upon him in reading it is not this: that its object is to make the personal Advent of the Lord immediately consequent on the conclusion of the course of the Lawless One. Is not the sentiment of the whole passage this :-that the cup of iniquity must first be filled to the brim by the full development of Antichrist, and that then instantly the Lord would personally come to destroy him? Is not this the impression that would be left upon the mind, even if the emphatic words "brightness of His coming" had not been used? How would the Thessalonians have marvelled, if they had been told that they had erred not only in omitting to expect the coming of the Lawless One, but still more, in not expecting a nonpersonal Advent of their Lord, which was to precede, by an indefinite period, that personal Advent which in every other part of the two Epistles they had been commanded to expect!

And if there is to be this non-personal Advent of our Lord, described in terms so remarkable, "brightness of His coming," in what way and under what circumstances are we to expect it? In what part of Scripture are we taught respecting it? The Scripture abundantly testifies to a personal coming of the Lord that is to destroy Antichrist; but where does it speak of another Antichrist destroyed by a non-personal Advent?

But again, there are few parts of Scripture that bring before us more clearly the personal Advent of our Lord, and the blessed results thereof, than Isaiah xi. That chapter should be read in immediate connexion with the preceding, where we find recorded the forgiveness of Israel and the final fall of the unregenerate power of earth symbolized by Lebanon. "Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one." The next chapter records the results of the coming forth of that Mighty One,-Him who is the Rod out of the stem of Jesse, now hidden with God (like Aaron's rod hidden in the sanctuary) but who shall then "come forth" and flourish or "bring forth fruit."* From

See Isaiah xi. 1. And there shall COME FORTH, a rod (or sprout) from the stem of Jesse, and a branch (or shoot,, so called from being verdant) from his

that moment the dominance of evil shall cease. Righteousness and meekness shall be trampled down no longer. "He shall reprove with equity for the meek of the earth : and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the Wicked One." Creation shall be freed from its bondage; the wolf shall dwell with the lamb; hurting and destruction shall cease. And in that day, forgiven and converted Israel shall "with joy draw water from the wells of salvation." None of these things are as yet true. Meekness suffers: the Lord Jesus, still maintaining the longsuffering testimony of grace, does not, at present, put forth His power to smite and to destroy. The whole Scripture declares that He will not put forth that character of destructive power until He is "revealed in flaming fire, taking vengeance." But Dr. Brown by maintaining that the verse in Thessalonians, which is a quotation from Isaiah xi, refers not to a personal, but to a non-personal Advent of the Lord, would be obliged to say that all the descriptions of the 11th and 12th of Isaiah, the conversion and rest of Israel, the destruction of the Wicked One their persecutor, the final fall of the dominance of evil, the peaceful rest of creation, and the vindication of meekness and righteousness from their oppressors, are all the result of this supposed non-personal Advent. In that case, certainly, the tried and suffering people of God should experience a relief from their sore vexations, as soon as this supposed non-personal Advent takes place. It would be strange, indeed, if the saints of God should be worn out with persecution after Christ had interfered on behalf of the meek of the earth,-after creation had been blessed,—after hurting and destruction had ceased, --and after Israel were rejoicing in their God! Yet this must be so, if Dr. Brown's present exposition be maintained; for in 2 Thessalonians ii. we are expressly told, that persecution and tribulation are to be the portion of God's people, and that their enemies are to be strong

roots shall bring forth fruit (, to bear, to be fruitful, to increase). "Et exibit virga ex trunco Isai, et surculus ex radicibus ejus fructum faciet." Vitringa. That is, He whom we already own as the sprout sprung from the apparently dead stock of Jesse, shall (when the time comes for Lebanon to fall and for the Assyrian to be destroyed and for Israel to be forgiven-the subjects of the preceding chapter) come forth and shall bring forth fruit and flourish being no longer then "as a root out of a dry ground"—having no longer to say, "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain." Isaiah xlix. 4. "In that day shall the Branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel." Is. iv. 2.