"SWEET is the harp of Prophecy; too sweet

Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch;
Nor can the wonders it records be sung

To meaner music and not suffer loss.
But when a poet, or when one like me,
Happy to rove among poetic flowers,

Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last
On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair,
Such is the impulse and the spur he feels
To give it praise proportioned to its worth,
That not to attempt it, arduous as he deems
The labor, were a task more arduous still."

COWPER'S WINTER WALK AT NOON.

PREFACE.

THE author of the following treatise on unfulfilled Prophecy was induced, more than twenty years ago, (in consequence of an unsuccessful attempt to explain a Prophecy to a layman who inquired its meaning,) to give more earnest heed than before to those things which the prophets have spoken. He felt this to be a duty as well as pleasure on two

accounts:

1. That he might inform and satisfy himself what the great purposes of God concerning the future were; and

2. Be able, as a public teacher of God's word, to show inquirers after truth the things (as he might discover them) which shall be hereafter, according to the determinate coun sel and foreknowledge of God.

Dark as the subject at first appeared to his mind, constant application and research brought increasing light and clearer views, until at last he began to speak with that confidence which one obtains who feels assured that he has been brought out of darkness into light, and that his eyes have been opened to "behold wondrous things out of God's law."

Fully aware of the dangers as well as difficulties of this branch of sacred study, he has not been intimidated by either, but trusting in the promise that they who seek for truth in God's word as for hid treasure, shall find it, he has persevered in searching into the deep things of God—things declared to be "hidden from the wise and the prudent," but promised to be "revealed unto babes."

Congerning the dangers and difficulties of the study of Prophecy, the author would offer a few remarks.

One great danger or propensity of all interpreters of Prophecy, is to turn prophets themselves, and to substitute their own theories for the verities which the prophets announce. This is a danger most frequently fallen into by those who are committed to certain chronological periods, and have attempted with great positiveness to fix the times of their expiration. Of this we have had frequent examples in our own as well as former periods. Millerism, e. g., entirely ignored or explained away several of the most important events yet to take place, because it had fixed the termination of all things at so near a period, (1843;) that time sufficient for their fulfillment did not remain.

Another danger arises from having the mind strongly biased in favor of some theory of the future, and then investigating the Prophecies under that influence; e. g., believing that the only blessing in store for the Jews is conversion to Christianity, and that therefore the prophets are not to be understood as predicting their national restoration and return to the land of their fathers, in those passages in which this is the literal meaning and natural import of the language. There is much "handling of the word of God deceitfully," by wresting it from its plain and obvious meaning to make it speak figuratively the sentiments we prefer to hold.

Still another danger arises from the great desire some have to show that almost all the Prophecies have already been fulfilled, and then selecting events which bear only a remote resemblance, and that, too, in a few particulars, to those predictions. Take, e. g., the Waldenses and Albigenses, which some interpreters declare to be the Two Witnesses of Revelations, xi., and whose massacre in Europe, they think, was foreshadowed by the martyrdom of the Two WIT

NESSES in the street of the great city, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified. From two or three accidental points of coincidence, they interpret this to be a fulfillment of that Prophecy, although in many of the most essential characteristics there is an utter failure.

The last danger we shall mention, incident to the interpreters of Prophecy, is a tendency to exalt prophetical above doctrinal and practical truth, and making it the GREAT SUBJECT to be preached at all times, under all circumstances and on all occasions. This is the infirmity of enthusiasts on this theme, and is as injurious to the cause as is the indifference of those who boldly proclaim that unfulfilled Prophecy is not to be understood until it is fulfilled, and that, therefore, it is useless to attempt to understand, and especially to interpret it.

From these and other errors into which expounders of unfulfilled Prophecy have fallen, the author has endeavored to learn a useful lesson, and to profit by their mistakes; and he trusts that the reader will not discover any of them throughout these discourses. Having pointed out these DANGERS, it is proper briefly to touch upon the DIFFICUL TIES of the interpretation of unfulfilled Prophecy.

The greatest of these arises from the FRAGMENTARY character of Prophecy. A predicted event is broken up into several parts, and these are distributed among several prophets, each of whom predicts the portion given him, but none the whole. Thus, the entire career of our Lord upon earth was foretold by the Old Testament prophets: Moses declaring the family from which He should descend; Daniel, the time, and Micah, the place of His birth; Isaiah, the virginity of His mother and the propitiatory character of His sufferings; David, His resurrection and ascension; and Zechariah, His triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, etc., etc.

Now to have a distinct view of His whole career, as foretold by the prophets, we must collect together these and other fragments of the prophets and unite them in one harmonious whole, and hence arises the great difficulty of the interpreter of unfulfilled Prophecy. This was, and still is the stone of stumbling to the Jew, who can not fit in those Prophecies of Christ's glory and triumph as a conqueror, with those of His shame and humiliation as a sufferer, which the prophets foretold.

We know not how we can illustrate more clearly this feature of the prophetic writings, than by comparing it to one of those inventions for the entertainment of the young, called a CHINESE PUZZLE,” " in which a beautiful picture is first drawn on a flat surface of board or pasteboard, then divided into a great number of parts of curious shapes and different sizes, then thrown into confusion to be gathered and again united in one harmonious whole, which is not unfrequently a task of difficult accomplishment.

So God has pictured out the future for us in His word, and scattered it in parts throughout the sacred pages, to be collected and united in one harmonious whole, not, however, without toilsome effort, (often, perhaps, unsuccessful,) yet not to be abandoned on that account. For, if those seeking amusement with the ingenious contrivances of human skill will devote hours to arrange the separated parts of a broken picture, that they may see in its entirety the view it presents, with how much more assiduity should students of the oracles of God collect the separated parts of that picture of the future which the divine artist has drawn, divided and distributed through many inspired books, that peradventure, by a careful comparison of things spiritual with spiritual, the whole may be brought into such unity that a clear and distinct view of the portentous future may be obtained.