PREFACE. THE volume now in the reader's hands, requires a few introductory words of explanation. It contains little that is entirely new. It consists of seven sermons, delivered on public occasions, at various intervals during the last twenty years, and afterwards published in the form of tracts. Of these sermons, one or two have perhaps obtained a greater circulation than they deserved, while one or two, in my humble judgment of more real worth, have received comparatively little notice. They are now brought together in their present form, for the convenience of those who wish to have a manual of my views of prophecy, in a compact shape. At the very outset I warn the reader of these pages that he will find here nothing deep or abstruse. I have purposely avoided everything that can be called speculative or conjectural. I have strictly confined myself to a few great prophetical principles, which appear to me written as it were with a sunbeam. I have not attempted to expound |