§ 1. Preliminary Remarks.
This is a very comprehensive and very difficult subject. It is intimately allied with all the other great doctrines which fall under the head of eschatology. It has excited so much interest in all ages of the Church, that the books written upon it would of themselves make a library. The subject cannot be adequately discussed without taking a survey of all the prophetic teachings of the Scriptures both of the Old Testament and of the New. This task cannot be satisfactorily accomplished by any one who has not made the study of the prophecies a specialty. The au- thor, knowing that he has no such qualifications for the work, purposes to confine himself in a great measure to a historical sur- vey of the different schemes of interpreting the Scriptural proph- ecies relating to this subject.
The first point to be considered is the true design of prophecy, and how that design is to be ascertained. Prophecy is very dif- ferent from history. It is not intended to give us a knowledge of the future, analogous to that which history gives us of the past. This truth is often overlooked. We see interpreters undertaking to give detailed expositions of the prophecies of Isaiah, of Eze- kiel, of Daniel, and of the Apocalypse, relating to the future, with the same confidence with which they would record the history of the recent past. Such interpretations have always been falsified by the event. But this does not discourage a certain class of minds, for whom the future has a fascination and who delight in the solution of enigmas, from renewing the attempt. In proph- ecy, instruction is subordinate to moral impression. The occur- rence of important events is so predicted as to produce in the minds of the people of God faith that they will certainly come to pass. Enough is made known of their nature, and of the time and mode of their occurrence, to awaken attention, desire, or apprehension, as the case may be ; and to secure proper effort on the part of those concerned to be prepared for what is to come to