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INTRODUCTION.

WHEN a man has for a considerable time been occupying his mind with a particular subject, and has brought that subject to some determination, he is apt to think that others also may find that pleasure in his lucubrations, which he himself has experienced: and when that subject is not only pleasant, but grave and important; not only important, but deeply interesting to his best feelings and his brightest hopes; he begins to consider it as a duty that his own convictions should be made known, and that every ray of truth should be spread abroad which has appeared to enlighten his own mind. Under the influence of such impressions, I feel persuaded that the following strictures will be neither unacceptable nor uninteresting to him who has a taste for investigating the probable truth of mysterious subjects.

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I wish not to enter the lists of controversy with any man, neither am I vain enough to suppose that my light will shine clear in the eyes of every one, particularly of those who have already formed their system, and fortified it with every learned and ingenious argument: but I may humbly trust, that I have a right to examine the soundness of such arguments, and even to oppose any prior system with an hypothesis which appears to me to approximate nearer to the true interpretation.

In order to gain a clear view, and to comprehend the meaning of the Apocalyptic writings, it seems to be convenient, and indeed necessary, to establish with precision the sense and scope of the visions contained in the book of the prophet Daniel, as these appear to be closely connected with what St. John afterwards saw.

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The ground which I have chosen for my foundation is this, that both prophets had the same object, and that object is the Church of God; that states and kingdom's are no otherwise introduced, but as they

are connected with the Church, and must by no means be brought forward as principal objects of prophecy. To this I mean strictly to adhere, as a departure from this seems to me to have been a very efficient cause of confusion and difficulty.

Another point in which I have widely differed from other commentators is this, that I have considered the prophecies of Daniel separate from those of St. John. For though the visions of Daniel embrace the events of God's church from the time of the Babylonian captivity, to the consummation of its militant state on earth; and those of St. John beginning with the rise of Christianity, carry the history of the church down to the same period; yet is there this great difference; Daniel being a Jew, and living at the time when the Jewish was the visible church of God, and being most interested in the concerns of his own people, has chiefly confined his prophecies to the fortune of that people; leading us however into the Christian church with the change of dispensation, and again retiring to the

east, when the Roman empire was divided into east and west; in which division of the eastern empire and church he continues to the end. St. John, on the other hand, being an apostle of our Lord, has given us a full and particular account of the Christian church in the west, and has but in one instance clearly referred to the Jewish in the east; but the two accounts of the two prophets will combine both churches, and make one fold under one Shepherd.

It is an observation often made, and which can never be too often repeated, that in the midst of judgment God thinks upon mercy and here we have two remarkable instances. At the time of the deep depression of the Jewish church, and when the whole people were groaning in captivity, suffering the due punishment of their sins, their spirits were cheered, their hopes revived, and they had the consolation of being assured that God would not utterly forsake them; and though they did not comprehend the intermediate circumstances, they understood enough to

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