Hints on the Interpretation of Prophecy

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General Books, 2013 - History - 46 pages
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1842 edition. Excerpt: ... see only the tops of eminences, and have no means of judging how extensive are the valleys or table-lands between. They do not undertake, therefore, to calculate distances. In speaking of these things, they turn the attention of their readers only to what they have seen themselves, i. e. the prominent parts of the landscape. So with John and other prophets. Great events--the prominences of history--are seen and described, but (for the most part at least) not the intervals of time between. In the case before us, the description of the general judgment comes after the description of the fall of Gog and Magog, because the writer, having now brought the church to a state of universal triumph and security, hastens to complete his work by pointing out the glorious rewards that will ensue, and the everlasting blessedness of the church triumphant. My belief therefore is, that the setting sun of our world will be in unclouded glory. " Its hoary head," to borrow from a sacred writer, " will indeed be a crown of glory." My principal reasons for this are, that the promises made to the church and to its Redeemer; the benevolence of the Godhead, and the triumph of mercy over the malignity and craft of Satan; and also the analogy of all God's purposes and doings, in which there is always an advance toward the highest good--all unite in seeming to require such an interval of rest and peace and prosperity to his church. How long this will be, how many will become sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, I do not pretend to know. But so much we may believe, viz., that " the Seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head;" and therefore that the number of the redeemed, from our fallen race, will at last immeasurably exceed that of the lost. What a...

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