Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER;

AND

VOLUNTARY CHURCH ADVOCATE:

CONDUCTED BY

WILLIAM JONES, M.A.

AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE WALDENSES;
BIBLICAL CYCLOPEDIA; LECTURES ON THE APOCALYPSE ;
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, ETC.

VOL. I.

"LORD JESUS, may thy character open to our view, as depicted in thy doctrine,
thy miracles, thy sufferings, thy death, thy resurrection, and thy glory! and then
we shall not fear to put ourselves exclusively under thee, as our Lawgiver, our
Prophet, our Priest, and our King."-ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.

LONDON:

SOLD BY G. WIGHTMAN,

AND

SHERWOOD, GILBERT, AND PIPER, PATERNOSTER-ROW ;

ALSO BY SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL, STATIONERS'-HALL-COURT; MARPLES AND Co.
AND JOHN MAITLAND, LIVERPOOL; BAYNE, MANCHESTER ; SHOWFLL, BIRMINGHAM ;
G. BENNETT, NOTTINGHAM; KNIGHT, KIRKGATE, LEEDS; TURNER, BEVERLEY;
H. EARNSHAW, COLNE; MELROSE, BERWICK-UPON-TWEED; J. WARDLAW, EDINBURGH;
G. GALLIE, GLASGOW ; J. MACDONALD AND G. KING, ABERDEEN; JAMES ADAM,
DUNDEE; DYER, KIRKALDY; R. M. TIMS, DUBLIN; W. JACKSON, NEW YORK.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY J. TAYLOR, 119 FLEET-STREET.

PREFATORY REMARKS.*

Time, the great innovator, brings everything to pass. Gradual but unceasing is its march,-it never slumbers,-it never pauses, it gives maturity to everything.

When we are taught to read the volume of Nature, or rather the great library of God, and have made some proficiency in the volume of Revelation, we discover that there is an admirable analogy between the volumes of Creation and Redemption. As is the progress of natural, so has been the progress of supernatural, light. First, there are the glimmerings of dawn-then the twilight-then the risen day-and then the radiance of noon. So is not only the faith of the just which brightens more and more until the perfect day; but also such are the developments of the light of life.

Starlight and moonlight ages are no more. The Sun of Mercy has arisen. But, as in the natural, so in the moral world, there are clouds and obscurations. There are interceptions of the light of the sun. There are eclipses partial and total. In a total eclipse there is the darkness of night. There have been both partial and total eclipses of the Sun of Mercy since his rising. Not only have there been cloudy and dark days, but actual darkness like that of night.

Had not a thick vapour arisen from the unfathomable abyss and hid the Sun of Mercy and of Life from human eyes, neither the beast nor the false prophet could have been born. Wild beasts go forth in the night, and in darkness commit their depredations. So the apocalyptic "wild beast" was the creature of night and of darkness.

Vapours arise from the waters, and from the unfathomable ocean the densest fogs arise. When we dream of troubles, we wade through deep waters. Hence, the commotions and troubled agitations of communities are symbolized by the waters

Conscious of my inability to produce anything half so good, I here present my readers with my friend Campbell's Preface to the first volume of his Millennial Harbinger.' It will subserve my purpose quite as well as it did his! Only, truth, honour, and justice, imperiously demand that I should acknowledge my obligations; otherwise I might be said to resemble the daw, in the fable, who strutted about bedecked with borrowed plumes.-W. J.

« AnteriorContinuar »