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I am God, and there is none like Me; declaring the end from the beginning,
and from ancient times the things that are not yet done; saying, My counsel
shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.

Knock at the gates of nations: rouse their fears:
Say, Wrath is coming, and the storm appears:
But raise the shrillest cry in British ears.

ISAIAH xlvi.

COWPER.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY GEO. ELLErton, gougH SQUARE;
AND

PUBLISHED BY JAMES NISBET, BERNERS STREET;
AND B. WERTHEIM, 57 ALDERSGATE STREET.

MDCCCXXXIV.

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PREFACE.

THE increasing importance which, during the last twenty or thirty years, has been attached to the study of the prophetic writings of the Old and New Testament; and the deep interest which every individual has in the issue of the consummations which appear to be closing around us, whatever be his rank, station, or calling in society; may well serve as an apology for any attempt to throw additional light on the difficulties which have ever been found to involve the subject.

The assertion made by Sir Isaac Newton, who, it is well known, devoted much time and study to these subjects, that, among the interpreters of the last age, there was scarcely one of note who had not made some discovery worth knowing, is a great encouragement to any person who considers he has any thing new to offer, not to

withhold it from the public. It is only by such means that all the light which God intendeth us to have from prophecy, under all its aspects, whether general or chronological, literal or symbolical, can be elicited. And it ought to be no discouragement to this study that hypotheses have been formed which time has proved to be erroneous, and that injudicious opinions have been sometimes hazarded. "There

is not a question in natural philosophy, in chemistry, in morality, in theology, nor scarcely a text of Scripture, on which there has not been a diversity, and even a contrariety, of opinion. If, therefore, we are to neglect the study of any branch of knowledge because of the variety or discrepancies of opinion that have been maintained by different men, we must close all our books, the Bible among the rest, and return at once to Gothic darkness and barbarism."

And, surely, if we consider the names and the number of those distinguished individuals, both clergymen and laymen, who in modern times have directed the best energies of their minds to the study of the

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