which had gone by, before ever the earth, or the world, was. They tell us nothing of the immeasurable past.

B

Is there not some record of those infinite ages? Some history of the mighty working of Him who hath done great things and unsearchable, marvellous things without number? Is there not some chronicle of the mighty acts of the blessed and only Potentate, the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible? Surely there issurely the happy tenants of light and glory are privileged to look into these things; and if the spirit of man should sigh for this knowledge, and for powers to apprehend it, I dare not call that desire, a vain and presumptuous curiosity. On the contrary, it seems to me that

66 a desire which tends to know

"The works of God, thereby to glorify

"The great Workmaster, leads to no excess

"That reaches blame; but rather merits praise
"The more it seems excess."

Par. Lost, iii. 694.

It appears, indeed, but reasonable that he who has seen a part of the ways of God, should wish to learn more of them-that he should aspire to know those things that are unsearchable, and to understand what is past finding out to conceive and adore that manifestation of the Divine glory which has emanated

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through every hour of a past eternity, from the Lord God Omnipotent, the Centre and Source of all things.

In one sense, indeed, such a desire is vain; for God has given to man no means of gratifying it. It is certain that he brings nothing into the world; and that the present and the future are the inheritance to which he is born. With his first breath, time (or rather eternity) as to him begins. He gradually learns to look on the present; and, not content with this, his spirit springs forward to the future, and is busied with things not seen as yet; but he has no idea of the past; and if he ever gains one, it is not by any power of mental retrospect; but simply by the report and testimony of others. That testimony may carry him back through the brief period of the world which he inhabits, but all beyond is a mere blank. It is a dark and boundless ocean of uncertainty ; and if he sends forth his spirit to range over that abyss, it is only that it may return tired and unprofited, to seek for present support, and search out its future destiny in the record of things that are, and are to come.

It seems not unreasonable to imagine that one day this veil will be removed. That man,

redeemed and restored, and made the heir of immortality, will (if I may so speak) inherit the past. That he who has put off mortality, and lives when time is no more-who is, as it were, grafted into eternity, by receiving everlasting life, should be enabled to look back. That the volume of the past should be unsealed, and he should be permitted to exercise his enlarged intellect, and purified affections, in studying the records of heaven! But as yet the volume is sealed. Man is chained to this little spot limited in his apprehension-crippled in his faculties-and depraved in his affections, it is more important that his present state should be regulated, and his future state revealed; and therefore, "this world" and the world to come," are the great subjects of revelation.

Well, then, I was going to say, let us thankfully accept the inestimable benefit-let us take the Word of God, and ransack its stores let us search as for hid treasure, and bend every power to find, and seize on, all that God has condescended to reveal. But what a question meets us at the very outset ? I see that I must come to it, and therefore I may as well state it at once. "Have I any business

to meddle with those parts of the Word of God which relate to the future? or, in other words, which consist of unfulfilled prophecy? Strange as it may seem, this question has been agitated in the Christian Church, and a great majority seem to have decided it in the negative. As, however, in the course of these essays, I must inevitably break through rules: laid down by those who speak as if they had authority, and who manifest great anger when they are disobeyed, I will briefly state my reasons for paying no attention to their pro-* hibition.

I confess that, considering how much of the Word of God is acknowledged by all Christians to be prophetical, it does seem strange that such a question should ever have arisen. Knowing that "all Scripture is given by inspiration," and that "all is profitable for instruction in righteousness," I think we must admit that all ought to be read and studied, by him who professes to receive the Scriptures as the Word of God. This, indeed, I find admitted in general terms by most Christians; and I never met with any man, professing to be a disciple of Christ, who would have taken : upon himself the responsibility of marking out.

those parts of the Bible, which a Christian should omit to read. But, I have met with many who have so stated the matter, as virtually to negative all the particulars of their general admission.

The reader has probably met with many persons professing religion, and, at the same time, openly avowing that they never attempted to understand those prophecies which they consider as unfulfilled-who told him with complacency, that they never studied them, and took some credit for their forbearance. It is natural that they should desire to dissuade others from that which they avoid themselves; and to this end several maxims have been framed and repeated, till they have become current, and are frequently used by those who would act more honestly, if they simply said, that they had never attempted to understand a great part of revealed truth-that they considered it a very difficult business-that they had been so much engaged in other matters, that, far from knowing how much might be learned on such points, they had never once seriously reflected how far it was a matter either of duty or wisdom to see whether any thing was to be learned or not.