ien nature from man, and thus effecting the union of the
creature with the Creator, of man with God, in and through the Son of
Man, even the Son of God made manifest. Now can it be doubted by the
attentive and unprejudiced reader of St. Matthew, c. xxiv, that the Son
of Man, in fact, came in the utter destruction and devastation of the
Jewish Temple and State, during the period from Vespasian to Hadrian,
both included; and is it a sufficient reason for our rejecting the
teaching of Christ himself, of Christ glorified and in his kingly
character, that his Apostles, who disclaim all certain knowledge of the
awful event, had understood his words otherwise, and in a sense more
commensurate with their previous notions and the prejudices of their
education? They communicated their conjectures, but as conjectures, and
these too guarded by the avowal, that they had no revelation, no
revealed commentary on their Master's words, upon this occasion, the
great apocalypse of Jesus Christ while yet in the flesh. For by this
title was this great prophecy known among the Christians of the
Apostolic age.

Ib. p. 253.

Never, Oh! our Lady! never, Oh! our Mother! shalt thou fall again into
the crime of idolatry.

Was ever blindness like unto this blindness? I can imagine but one way
of making it seem possible, namely, that this round square or
rectilineal curve--this honest Jesuit, I mean--had confined his
conception of idolatry to the worship of false gods;--whereas his saints
are genuine godlings, and his 'Magna Mater' a goddess in her own
right;--and that thus he overlooked the meaning of the word.

Ib. p. 254.

The entire text of the Apostle is as follows:--'Now we beseech you,
brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering
together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind', &c. (2 Thess.
ii. 1-10.)

O Edward Irving! Edward Irving! by what fascination could your spirit be
drawn away from passages like this, to guess and dream over the
rhapsodies of the Apocalypse? For rhapsody, according to your
interpretation, the Poem undeniably is;--though, rightly expounded, it
is a well knit and highly poetical evolution of a part of this and our
Lord's more comprehensive prediction, 'Luke' xvii.

Ib. p. 297.

On the ordinary ideas of the coming of Christ in glory and majesty, it
will doubtless appear an extravagance to name the Jews, or to take
them into consideration; for, according