THE EVENTS AND TIMES OF THE VISIONS OF DANIEL AND ST. JOHN, INVESTIGATED, IDENTIFIED, AND DETERMINED; WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER AND USE OF METAPHORS AND SYMBOLS. BY SAMUEL LEE, D.D. S. T. P. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HALLE, MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETIES OF ENGLAND AND PARIS, HONORARY MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF RHODE ISLAND, AND OF THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, AMERICA, LATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF HEBREW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, ADVERTISEMENT. THE causes which led to the following publication, and to some others referred to in it, have been, the many, various, contradictory, and fanciful, interpretations of prophecy put forth during the last twenty or thirty years, tending, as it has appeared to the author, to render the once more sure word of prophecy matter of aversion, rather than of respect; the evidence to the truth of Christianity, deducible therefrom, null and void; and the efficiency of Christianity itself, a thing of doubtful disputation. To these must be added, the purely assumptive manner in which this question has been treated, the Judaïzing doctrines inculcated, with the secular results urged: and to these again, the plausible system of prediction not less commanding and precise than that of Almanackmaking: all of which, so far as experiment has been made, has utterly failed! And here, again, the least evil has not been, the very shallow and inconclusive system of reasoningif such it may be called-set up and recommended: which cannot fail, if persevered in, to bring the Word of God into contempt, and hence necessarily to lead either to Romanism, or to pure infidelity. The times we live in, and the means we possess, call for, and should produce, better things. And such, the Author believes, a natural, easy, and judicious, exposition of Holy Scripture will abundantly give. How far he may have succeeded in eliciting these, it will be for the Reader to judge. |