PREFATORY REMARKS On the progress of Prophetic events since the month of February, 1848; and since the publication of the First Edition of this work. THE excitement naturally, and, it is to be earnestly hoped, beneficially produced in the public mind by the unparalleled events of what has been justly named by every voice, the wonderful year 1848, having occasioned an early demand for a second edition of the following pamphlet, in which the importance of this prophetic epoch, as anticipated by the author, was made known by various extracts from his former expositions; he is desirous of taking this opportunity of stating what further fulfilment or development of prophecy has occurred since he last published. But it may reasonably be asked, What can be expected from so short a space of time as eleven months, judging from the hitherto slow and gradual progress of prophetic events? for how many ages have passed away, and how imperfect still is the fulfilment of the promise made to our first parents, and repeated to the patriarch Abraham, that in his seed, more particularly, all nations of the earth should be blessed; and farther, that the land of Canaan should be given to him as an unalienable possession. And even if we descend to a later dispensation, howtong has not the Church been constrained to wait for the predicted destruction of its great adversary, the corrupter of the earth, since the cries of those first martyrs, slain by pagan persecution, were heard from beneath the altar, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" when it was said unto them that they should wait yet, for what is called in prophetic language "a little season," but has been the long period of 1260 years, "until their fellow-servants also, and their brethren that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." 66 The ways of God are, however, as various, as his power is infinite, and are manifested in opposite extremes: in those slow processes of nature, beyond the conception of man, who is but of yesterday, by which the evidence of modern science gives us reason to believe that the earth may have been progressing through incalculable ages towards its present state; and in those instantaneous acts by which its uniform and appointed laws have occasionally been changed or suspended; and it shall hereafter, according to the divine promise, be, with all things in it, created new. They are again thus manifested in the unlimited extent of systems of worlds revealed to us in the nightly heavens; and in those minute works, the perfection of which is not to be discovered but through the aid of microscopic instruments. If again we contemplate the moral government of the world, we find the infinite exaltation of the divine nature, necessarily incomprehensible to any created intelligence, placed in scripture in contrast with the incarnation of the Godhead, and the humiliation of Jesus Christ, for the redemption of beings utterly alienated from him by the fall;and the wonders of his long-suffering love contrasted with the severity of his holiness, which will by no means clear the guilty. Shall we not then exclaim with the apostle, whether in reference to the kingdoms of nature or of grace, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! The fulfilment of the word of prophecy affords examples of the same contrast in the case of Abraham, above referred to; He that had received the promises, and to whom the land of Canaan was made sure by an everlasting covenant, remained all his lifetime as a wanderer and a stranger, and received none inheritance in it, no not so much as to set his foot on, save a burying-ground, expressive of a future hope; and his seed also suffered affliction in Egypt 400 years: But no sooner had the appointed time arrived for their deliverance, than the plagues fell upon the land of their captivity in quick succession, and they were redeemed out of it, according to promise, with a high hand and a stretched out arm. And so it is now; the period during which they have waited for their deliverance from their last captivity under Gentile domination, of which their former captivities were but indications and types, is to be reckoned not by hundreds, but by thousands of years; but no sooner has it been brought to a conclusion, which it has been our high privilege to have lived to witness, than we see the predicted judgments of God unfolding themselves in such rapid succession, that we may trace them visibly, not in the events of periods |