PREFACE. To the student of prophecy, the annals of the day and the hour rushing past are full of interest. He hears in the events of the present the echoes of ancient prophecies. He sees the inspired word translating itself into facts. To his mind, great statesmen and soldiers are not the sculptors, but the chisels only in the hands of the Divine Sculptor; and the policy of cabinet, and congress, and divan is merely the filling up of the grand programme laid down nearly two thousand years ago. God is in prophecy its inspiration; God is in history its actor. Standing where prophecy is rushing into history, let us carefully and calmly observe its currents, and gather and garner in our hearts hopes, and joys, and bright expectancies that sparkle on the waters and in the sweet sunshine. Fanaticism, and passion, and prejudice, must have no place in such researches. Dogmatism is no less unchristian. Good men differ on the details of many of the great themes which constitute the burden of the prophetic records. On these it becomes us to speak in temperate language, and with the utmost reserve. But on the leading truths, and their application, there prevails on all sides great unanimity of judgment; a unanimity that increases every day. The writer does not pretend to any originality: he is content to follow, not to lead. Such men as Bishops Horsley and Newton, Sir Isaac Newton, Mede, Dr. Chalmers, Bickersteth, and Faber, among those who have gone up higher; Bishops Villiers and Bickersteth, Edward B. Elliott, McNeile, Dallas, Freemantle, Keith, Bonar, Chamberlain among living divines; Lord Carlisle, and the Author of "Armageddon," and others, have all written with more or less power and originality, and with marvellous agreement, on the subject of prophecy. The learned commentators, Stier, Oldshausen, and Dean Alford, take substantially the same views, and unfold them in their works with great erudition. The writer of this volume merely attempts to illustrate and to turn so widely acknowledged truths to practical and personal improvement, he trusts, with all sobriety of judgment and plainness of speech. He regrets that a few-and a few only-of the literary and learned writers who animadverted on his former book gave so much space to the interpretation of the author's motives and merits, and so little to a discussion of the subject. He can say from the very heart, that it is his master-aim to do good-to make man wiser, and better, and happier, by drawing into the weary present a little of that sunshine which is stored up for us in the blessed future. His labours may fail-this he cannot help-but the consolation that flows from a pure motive and a sublime object will remain in his heart as a "well of living water," ever fresh and full. He does not pretend to impart any new light to the scholar; but he labours to teach, and he prays that he may be useful to the many. "It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight But better far it is to speak One simple word which now and then And sinful sons of men." |