LECTURE I.

EXPLANATORY OF THE DESIGN OF THE COURSE; -OF THE IMPORTANCE OF AN ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROPHETIC SCRIPTURES; -AND OF THE SPIRIT IN WHICH THEIR STUDY SHOULD BE CONDUCTED.

BY THE REV. JAMES HALDANE STEWART, M.A.

2 PETER i. 19.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.

It is a generally admitted fact that we are living at a very eventful period of time. The last century closed with one of the most astonishing Revolutions which the annals of History have ever recorded. This was followed by a most destructive war, a war in which every state in Europe was more or less engaged. After five-and-twenty years of dreadful carnage, peace was at length proclaimed: but instead of producing a state of

settled tranquillity, it has rather seemed like the lulling of the storm-the deceitful calm which precedes the sweep of the hurricane. For the principles of infidelity and insubordination, which were so widely disseminated during the season of revolutionary bloodshed, left the minds of men in a most feverish state-a state resembling an underground volcano, breaking forth in infidel societies, in plots and treasonable conspiracies, or in acts of open rebellion against lawful authority.

These popular tumults which, like the waves of the troubled sea, are continually "casting up mire and dirt," have been accompanied by a very prevalent feeling throughout the world, that some great change is at hand. "Men's hearts are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth."*

In this state of anxious uncertainty, if we apply to persons of worldly wisdom, or to sagacious statesmen for relief: if we ask them to suggest an effectual remedy, or to provide some sure defence against these apprehended dangers, they can make no reply. They are constrained to confess that the present state of the world confounds alike the philosopher and the politician : that "the wisdom of their wise men is come to

*Luke xxi. 26..

naught, and the understanding of the prudent has perished."

In this state, however, in which the wisdom of the world is foolishness, and their boasted idols are put to silence, the Lord has provided an allsufficient guide for his people; for as the inspired Apostle St. Peter declares in my text, "We have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn, and the daystar arise in your hearts." For from the fall of man to the present hour, the prophetic word of God has been the lamp which he has graciously provided for our benighted race.

For such was the grace and mercy of God, that while for their transgression he dismissed our first parents from Paradise, He would not send them forth without this cheering light to guide their steps. This was his gracious declaration, when the Serpent had beguiled Eve, and Adam had hearkened unto the voice of his wife, and had eaten of the forbidden fruit; God said unto the Serpent, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." *

* Genesis iii. 15.

This was "the sure word of prophecy," by which God in his mercy lightened the dreary path of our offending parents; and this forms one of the great peculiarities of his revelation to fallen man, that it is PROPHETIC revelation: that as the Lord was pleased to encircle the earth with a firmament in which he placed the great luminaries, that they might "declare his glory" by their display of his Almighty power; so he has set over man the canopy of prophecy, that he might, by this manifestation of his foreknowledge and overruling providence, give another incontestible proof of his Deity and God-head. The lights placed in the heavens manifesting his Deity to the sense; the lamp of prophecy making a similar display to the minds of his intelligent creatures.

For it is God alone who can predict future events. Man, weak fallible man, cannot say what a day or even a moment may bring forth; but He whose broad eye looks through eternity, and with whom past, present, and future are as one, can with the same facility foretel events which he has purposed to perform in the most distant ages, that he can make known any trivial occurrence of the passing hour. This truth is thus sublimely declared by the prophet Isaiah, "Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; declaring the end from the beginning, and from