therefore if this objection should be admitted as valid against the interpretation here proposed, it must be no less so against every other interpretation which may at any time be suggested. The writer may very possibly mistake in his views of this prophecy, and in the dates which he has assigned to it. The time may not as yet be arrived for the disclosure of these things; but admitting this to be the case, he would still contend, that whensoever that time shall arrive, the interpreter, who during the progress of the period in question shall venture to point out the date of its commencement, will be exposed to the charge of predicting the time of its termination. This circumstance, therefore, cannot of itself constitute any real objection to the writer's interpretation. In fact, he entertains an opinion, which the following pages may more fully develope and explain, that the very disclosure, against the making of which this objection is directed, is purposely and graciously designed by the Almighty to be made, for the express object of supporting and consoling His Church under the peculiar circumstances of the Crisis, in which at the season in question it will be placed so that while the impious and, the ungodly, unawed by His providences, and : proudly disregarding His word, are blindly rushing on to their own destruction, and thus are awefully accomplishing those very prophecies which they reject and despise, the people of God, being forewarned by the Scriptures of the Crisis in which they find themselves involved, and foreseeing by faith the appointed termination of their trials, may possess their souls in patience, and confidently endure unto the end. |