deny his divine mission. He writes everywhere in the very best spirit, and if he does not always command our convictions, he uniformly secures our respect. "We were about to express our anticipation that the work would prove a popular one. That is now no longer matter of anticipation. Though very recently published, we hear that a second edition is already called for. We are glad to hear it, and wish it abundant success."-Edinburgh Christian Instructor. "Under this title, so pregnant with meaning, and so attractive in its varieties of signification to all classes of readers,—a venerable and excellent friend (the minister of St. Cyrus) has published a work of admirable aim and excellent execution, in two volumes, which display a patience and extent of research, and contain a mass of interesting matter, equally valuable and uncommon, more especially when, at a price so unusually moderate, as to prove, if proof were needed, the single-heartedness and love of his subject, so characteristic of an author to whom profit has not the less fully accrued from his literary labours, that it has ever been unthought of in prosecuting them. As with our author, the subject would grow upon us, dared we to permit it. We must desist, referring our readers fond of such investigations to the work itself, which exhibits an extraordinary degree of research into works of every description, from James's Naval History to the last Literary Gazette. No source of information has been neglected, and no cost has been spared. There are numerous beautiful and expensive maps, a curious table, with about 700 pages of interesting letterpress-for half a guinea!"-The Scots Times, No. 520, Vol. 7. Sept. 29, 1832. [To be placed before the title-page of Vol. I.] "At the end it shall speak, and not lie."-HAB, ii. 3. "Ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times ?"-MATT. xvi. 3. SECOND EDITION IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. BZ3473 1 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM WHYTE & CO. BOOKSELLERS TO HER MAJESTY; LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMAN, LONDON; M.DCCC.XXXII. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. A PREFACE, as has often been said, should be short. And, in presenting these pages to the public, the author knows not how they could be prefaced more briefly than in the answer which he gave to a friend who asked him to tell in three words, what is the object of the treatise, or what it is designed to show,— viz, WHERE WE ARE, or on what point of prophetic history we stand. It is only necessary to add, in regard to the execution of so serious a task, that, from the consequent manifold imperfections, he would be ashamed to acknowledge and unable to justify the haste with which, throughout the far greater part, the essay has been written, were it not, that, while the signs of the times are such that they may speedily pass into their significancy, a word in season, however weak, may be worth the hearing, even as the timely sound of the tocsin or the trumpet may be more effective of safety to a host than the boom of the cannon a few moments later, when the enemy has surprised and surrounded a sleeping camp. The great danger is, lest it should give "an uncertain sound;" and of that he has sought, as he would caution the reader, to beware. The question is one of time, not of talent; and of plain truth, not of ingenious invention, far less of presumptuous speculation. And if the time be come, that the judgments of God are manifest, all that needs to be said, is-Come and see. When first led to the investigation of the subject, it was the purpose of the writer to attempt only a brief outline. But finding this unsatisfactory, the treatise has gradually and unexpectedly not only swelled into a volume, but, after the printing was too far advanced to admit of an alteration of the paging, into two. The fulness of the matter which came successively to hand, left no other task than that of condensing it; and the most scrupulous reader need not fear to take up, what, perhaps, may most properly be called a book of historical abridgments and extracts. And still it is but a mere syllabus, designed to show how prophecy, at once, may be followed in its order, and . history in its course. If happily, through the Divine blessing, there be aught contained in these pages which may, in the least, be conducive to the interests of the great cause of truth, of righteousness, and of peace, the writer may be permitted to state, that, without any preconceived theory, ór any elaborate investigation, on simply reading, at no distant period, the Book of Revelation, he wondered that he could have been previously ignorant of the significancy of the seals and vials, which, however, it had never before entered into his thoughts to |