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of the Church, that the attention of the Christian world has been signally directed to its study; and assuredly those who penetrate not into its recesses, voluntarily relinquish the possession of what is most inspirating in composition, elevating in doctrine, purifying in its moral character, and heart-searching in its details.

But it is not to its didactic character alone that the instructed Christian will look for advantage from its perusal, great as are its claims even in this respect: the prophetical volume not merely presents us with an intermixture of moral and religious instruction, rising in some respects above the law, and only inferior to the bright shining of the Gospel light; it is also the picture of God's providential and moral government, exhibited in energy and action; it displays in prediction the omniscience and the power of God, and by the awful and mysterious declarations of his immutable, but as yet unfulfilled will, lays bare the arm of the Lord, and gives us a nearer view of that power which makes even the wrath and passions of man to praise him. These predictions may with sufficient accuracy be distinguished into those that are universally acknowledged to be fulfilled, and those whose accomplishment is yet future, or about which there are as yet doubts in the Christian world. Of the former, the contemplation cannot but be attended with the most signal utility. Whether we look to the denunciations against the instruments of God's wrath, and the enemies of his people, or at the tremendous threats that were directed against that very people itself, or recur to that golden thread of prediction connected with the promised advent of the Messiah that pervades the Scripture, the ineffable value of his work, and the anticipated blessings of his Gospel; we are filled with wonder, and admiration, and gratitude, that no other compositions can produce. In the power that raised up Babylon and Assyria to be the instruments of divine vengeance, and then brought them low and cast them to the ground for their iniquities, we see the presiding providence of that Being, who rules the kingdoms of this world as he will, and unseen and unknown by man, directs all events to the instruction and protection of his Church. In the dispersing, and yet preserving of that people, among the nations of whom God "made a full end" while they were spared though "scattered and peeled," we perceive the justice and the mercy of the Supreme; and in the perpetual recurrence of Prophecy to Him who was its Inspirer and its Object, we are admitted to see the mystery of divine love and divine grace, beaming in anticipated glory on a benighted world. It is impossible to rise from the perusal of such passages, without deeper convictions of the holiness of the character, more infixed feelings of the providential interference in the affairs of this world, of this Being who is "about our path, our bed, and not far away from any of us"-without having the mingled feelings of holy fear and love rendered more deep, more permanent, more practical; without shuddering over a Babylon that heard and despised a Daniel, or the deeper guilt and punishment of Zion

that rejected her Messiah; without remembering the tremendous admonition of the Apostle of the Gentiles, "Be not high minded but fear, for if God spared not the natural branches, TAKE HEED LEST HE SPARE NOT THEE." (Rom. ix. 21.)

We have adverted in these observations to the moral effect of those predictions on the believer's mind, rather than considered them as evidences for the truth of our religion. In the latter point of view, their power and efficacy have often been developed; and the strength of this argument, one that grows with time, can scarcely be denied, except on the bold and presumptuous theory of Porphyry, who asserted, that the predictions of Daniel were composed subsequent to the events that they professed to foretel. Observations on a subject so familiar to all readers of the Scriptures, and so obvious to every understanding, would seem unnecessary; and we have rather sought to show the edification connected with the study of Prophecy, and thence resulting to the individual Christian. Nor are these advantages limited to the examination of predictions confessedly fulfilled; even those portions of Prophecy that have their accomplishment still undeveloped in the obscurity of the future, claim our most serious attention, and demand to be investigated with seriousness and discretion. As a part of God's written word, it is worse than disrespect, it borders on impiety, to decline their study, and they have the peculiarity of an especial blessing being promised to those who examine, even the most mysterious part of their contents. (Rev. i. 3.) No assertion of incompetence, no feeling of ignorance can excuse from a positive duty: what God has given to be read, ought to be read by his creatures, and our ignorance and our incompetence ought to impress upon us the necessity of prudence in forming our own opinions, and modesty in obtruding them on others, rather than furnish us with a mode of evading what cannot be passed by without a positive confession of criminal neglect. It is not our part to determine what blessing the Author of the Bible may have connected with the perusal of any part of it, and it is surely, to say the least of it, dangerous to put ourselves voluntarily out of the sphere of covenanted favour.For personal edification and progress in holiness, such would not be, perhaps, the very passages that the humble-minded Christian would most assiduously study; and we would not be surprised to find the Gospels and Epistles more frequently in his hand, than the Vision of Truth or Ezekiel's temple, but no one that feels as he ought to do with regard to the whole word of God, will neglect even these the most mysterious and darkest words of Prophecy. A comparison of times and seasons will benefit the believer's mind; it will teach him habitually to look for a manifestation of the divine providence and power, and in expectation of it to sit loose to this present world; it will realize to him the presence of his heavenly Father, whose dealings with the world he ever has before his eyes, and it furnishes him with the very discipline of which the believing Chris

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tian, perhaps, stands most in need, waiting patiently for the Lord; though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry." (Habak. ii. 3.)

But while we would thus zealously exhort to a diligent and patient study of every part of the sacred Volume, we are not unaware of the excess to which a study of unfulfilled Prophecy may lead, and of the moral and religious mischief that may therein accrue. It would be, indeed, difficult to associate at all with those who make a profession of religion, and not to perceive much of this evil and good, and it is because we believe the examination we would suggest, to have no necessary connexion with evil, and to have much with religious, general, and individual advantage, that we have ventured to make some observations on the subject. This, with every other part of the Christian's walk requires prudence, discretion, and moderation; nor are the two former more necessary in protecting us from forming rash and hasty views upon the subject, than the latter in preventing us from placing too much confidence in our own opinions, attaching too much value to obscure or doubtful conclusions, or obtruding on others convictions, the result, perhaps, of insufficient examination and undigested speculation, as the truths of revelation, the mind of the Spirit. We trust, that our friends will forgive us, if we venture some suggestions on a subject confessedly of great importance, and on which, if we could dare to say it, we think many pious Christians have been induced to commit themselves unadvisedly; and while we disclaim for ourselves all pretensions as prophets or interpreters of Prophecy, and would be far from interfering with the view that any gifted and pious individual may gather from the word of God, we would yet enter with humility, our protest against many opinions that are floating on the surface of serious society, and still more against the tone and manner in which they are advanced; and we would offer a few observations by way of caution, to those who are not too deeply imbued with the modern spirit of Prophecy, to listen to such monitory strains. In the first place, we fear the absorbing nature of the study of unfulfilled Prophecy, as well as the prevalence of mere human motives in influencing the direction of the mind-the love of novelty, the curiosity connected with mystery, the desire of walking in a way untrodden and unbeaten, the hope of discovering something yet unperceived, all contribute their part to withdrawing the attention from the study of those parts of Scripture that really edify, and humble, and purify the mind, and to fix them exclusively on those that minister to the gratification of the imagination and the passions-speculation is ever more interesting to the human mind than practice, and the humbling and convicting truths of the Gospel are far less palatable to dwell on, than the half-seen events of a true, yet unrevealed millenium. The penetrating eloquence of St. Paul, the deep and concentrated energy of Peter, the melting tenderness of John, are forsaken for the calculations attendant on the periods of Daniel, and the shadowy consequences of the battle

of Armageddon; the first and second resurrection engages those who should be revolving the Apostolic mandate, "if ye then be risen with Christ, set your affections on things above," and those whose treasure should be hid with Christ where he now is, seem to have bounded all their wishes with the anticipations of a temporal reign on earth; those to whom the eternity of heaven is proposed, almost seem to forget their privileges in the hopes connected with the triumph of a thousand years! If other Scriptures be read, it is not with the anxious prayerful desire of receiving the Spirit's dictation, but of discovering in every passage whether it be prediction, or history, or exhortation, the second advent or personal reign, and following what we cannot but regard in spite of the piety and learning of the Author, the dangerous precedent of a late popular book upon the subject, every text is tortured to make it speak the system of the interpreter, and the triumphant Hierophant exclaims, that he sees nothing in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, but the millenial triumph of the Church; nothing of exhortation, nothing of promise, nothing of comfort and consolation, of mercy and power, though such has been the aliment of the Saints, the support of the Martyrs, the joy and rejoicing of the redeemed for successive centuries of discipline and trial. Connected with this, as its natural consequence, is an overweening confidence in our own opinions, and an over-rating of their importance in the scheme of our salvation-what we conjecture to be true, we are apt to believe to be essential, especially if it have either the merit of being an imagination of our own, or connected with our favourite speculations. We estimate its weight in the balance of the sanctuary, by its unreal magnitude to the disordered vision of the discoverer, and exercise in our regard for those who receive and those who reject it, the excluding system that characterises the infallible Church. We shall never lose the recollection of the surprise with which we heard an eminent and able servant of Christ assert the equality in guilt between the Jew's rejection of the first advent of the Redeemer, and the Christian's indifference to his second advent, and reign on earth; and we understand that a similar opinion, carried to still greater excesses, characterizes the wanderings of that erratic young man, on whose lucubrations with regard to the Sabbath we were induced to offer in our last Number some observations. We shall not dwell upon the pernicious effects of such prepossessions; we shall not point out, at present, how injudicious it is to attach such importance to opinions that may be true, but assuredly are uncertain; so uncertain, that the very key-stone of the system has recently been displaced by Mr. Maitland, and we have heard of no Millenarian who has re-adjusted it: we shall not advert to the fact, that saints in glory and the pious on earth, have lived and died without finding or seeking comfort from such opinions; nor shall we dwell upon the effect of introducing them, as they have been, into the pulpit, distracting the attention, and diverting the researches of a congregation. Nor shall we do more than allude to

the melancholy fact, that in the study of the prophetical parts of Scripture, to the exclusion of the didactic, doctrinal, and practical, many have had to lament diminished piety, and relaxed principle. We do not charge the high millenarian views with any such tendencies; we certainly see no connexion between them, and we do know many of the most holy servants of God who embrace them and find comfort in these opinions, but we have known an awful reverse to be experienced in other cases, and we do fear that an exclusive attention to that, which by furnishing food for speculation, is not unlikely to minister to the appetite of curiosity and the pride of intellect, that which is not in its own nature essentially holy, while it tends to keep the fainting spirit from the fountain of living waters, has so far a tendency to diminish personal holiness, to weaken the influence of pure practical religion, to deaden the life of God in the soul.

We fear that we shall incur the censure of many for having spoken our mind on this subject, and that the accusation of ignorance is the least that will be brought against us. We cannot help it. We have penned these observations under a deep conviction that some such admonition was necessary, in order to point out the danger of indulging curiosity under the guise of religion-of seeking to penetrate into the mysteries of unfulfilled prophecy, farther than is essential to the preservation of a wellregulated and well-founded faith; and, above all, of imposing the deductions of perhaps unauthorised speculation, as the clear and irrefragable inferences from the word of God. We are as far as any the very warmest Millenarians, from discouraging the study of prophecy-that study is a duty and a privilege; it is essentially connected with a deep respect for the whole Word of God; it is subsidiary to the elevation of piety and the subduing of presumption; but in order that it should subserve such ends, it must be entered upon with humility, pursued with discretion, and decided on with moderation; it must not be substituted for the deep and earnest examination of the more plain, and therefore more important, parts of Sacred Writ, nor must it be accompanied by the feelings that would dictate an inquiry into any prophane subject, or a conjectural examination into an historical detail; we deprecate the subject being made the Shibboleth of sect or party, or the criterion of church fellowship; and while we rejoice if any of God's people can find in millenarian views a distinctness that we admit ourselves not clearsighted enough to perceive, or a comfort that we confess ourselves so far from thence deriving, that we cannot even acknowledge the connexion, we would deeply regret that these views should be presented as essential to the minds of those who are as yet unconfirmed in the faith, and who, instead of bringing to the examination of these most awful and inscrutable subjects, extensive views of the analogy of Scripture, deep experimental religion, and confirmed habits of piety, have little to qualify them to be commentators but precipitancy of judgment and

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