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BT 885 .M17

THE SECOND ADVENT OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IN ITS CONNEXION WITH THE
DISPERSION AND COMING RESTORATION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

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PREFACE.

THE following Sermons were preached in the ordinary course of the Author's Ministry, during the season of Advent, and without any original intention of publication. They were taken down in short-hand at the instance of some members of the Congregation, and sent to me in manuscript, with a request that I would prepare them for the press. I have done so with care; and my heart's desire and prayer in the publication, as in the preaching of them, is this-O my God! who hast called me to the ministry of thy glorious Gospel, bless me in it, and make me a blessing; teach me to speak thy truth, and teach thy people to receive it with pure affection; teach me to sow the seed of eternal life, and teach them to reap the same; that both he who soweth, and they who reap, may rejoice together, in the day of the Lord Jesus!

There still exists a prejudice against the views of unfulfilled prophecy, which are advocated in these Sermons. It is supposed that they are curiously speculative rather than experimentally practical; and that all those persons who entertain them, must of necessity belong to the visionary school of modern fanaticism, rather than to the "good old way" of sound and sober theology.

It must indeed be confessed, that several distressing causes have conspired to give too much apparent ground for this opinion. But it ought in fairness to be remembered, that accurate and candid discrimination, is an indispensable ingredient in every intelligent and honest inquiry. It is the part of the disingenuous to mingle truth and falsehood together in one mixture. It is the danger of the unwary, either to receive or reject the whole mixture without discrimination. In either case, our great Enemy triumphs. If the whole mixture be rejected, one of his objects is gained in the suppression of truth. If the whole be received, another of his objects is gained in the circulation of error. It is the privilege of the wise to discriminate; to analyze the mixture; to adhere to truth against every

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