FROM SCRIPTURE AND HISTORY OF THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, ABOUT THE YEAR 1843; EXHIBITED IN A COURSE OF LECTURES. BY WILLIAM MILLER. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOSHUA V. HIMES, 14 Devonshire Street. 1842. INTRODUCTION. IN presenting these Lectures to the public, the writer is only complying with the solicitations of some of his friends, who have requested that his views on the Prophecies of Daniel and John might be made public. The reader is therefore requested to give the subject a careful and candid perusal, and compare every part with the standard of Divine Truth; for if the explanation the writer has given to the scriptures under consideration should prove correct, the reader will readily perceive that it concerns us all, and becomes doubly important to us, because we live on the eve of one of the most important events ever revealed to man by the wisdom of God the judgment of the great day In order that the reader may have an understanding of my manner of studying the Prophecies, by which I have come to the following result, I have thought proper to give some of the rules of interpretation which I have adopted to understand prophecy. Prophetical scripture is very much of it communicated to us by figures and highly and richly adorned metaphors; by which I mean that figures such as beasts, birds, air or wind, water, fire, candlesticks, lamps, mountains, islands, &c., are used to represent things proph esied of such as kingdoms, warriors, principles, people, judg. ments, churches, word of God, large and smaller governments. It is metaphorical also, showing some peculiar quality of the thing proph esied of, by the most prominent feature or quality of the figure used, as beasts -if a lion, power and rule; if a leopard, celerity; if a bear, voracious; an ox, submissive; a man, proud and independent. Fire denotes justice and judgment in its figure; in the metaphor, denotes the purifying or consuming up the dross or wickedness; as fire has a cleansing quality, so will the justice or judgments of God. "For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." Therefore almost all the figures |