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"To expound these predictions of the ancient prophets, of any thing but the restora.
tion of the natural Israel, is to introduce ambiguity and equivocation into the plainest
oracles of God."--Bishop Horsley.

FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION.

WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES NOT IN THE FORMER EDITION.

PHILADELPHIA:

ORRIN ROGERS, 67 SOUTH SECOND STREET.

E. G. Dorsey, Printer.

1840.

BS

649 .JS

317

1840

6-9-1932

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PREFACE.

THE following Lectures were originally delivered in London. My leading object in their composition was to make intelligible to large mixed congregations, a subject which I considered of great importance, and which I believed to be very rarely made the theme of popular discourse from the pulpit.

That subject is the purpose of God concerning the Jewish nation, as it is revealed in the Holy Scriptures. In examining this, my chief auxiliary has been the decision which history has already pronounced upon the right interpretation of prophetic language; and in my anticipations of the future, all I assume is, that the species of interpretation which events have rendered imperative, as it respects fulfilled prophecies, ought to be adhered to, with consistency and candour, in the examination of those prophecies which are as yet unfulfilled.

The language of the prophets is often, almost always, figurative in some degree: but the events predicted are not the less on that account literal events. When the Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of Zechariah, saying, Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, the language was figurative, our Lord not being literally a shepherd, neither his disciples sheep. But the event predicted in that figurative language was a literal event; and to the matter of fact, as it occurred in Gethsemane, the prophecy is applied by St. Matthew xxvi. 31. It is, therefore, no objection to the literal interpretation which I advocate, to say that the prophetic language is figurative. I admit that it is so-sometimes highly so. The question is, What do the figures mean? Do they mean other figures, or do they mean facts? My opinion is, that facts are the legitimate themes of prophecy. I appeal to history, comparing it with the prophetic volume, for the establishment of a principle by precedents; and I endeavour to convince by candid argumentation. I dogmatize not at all. I am open to conviction, when a more excellent way of interpreting the language of the

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