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GLIMPSES OF MESSIAH'S GLORY:

BEING

LECTURES

DELIVERED DURING LENT, 1848,

AT ST. GEORGE'S, BLOOMSBURY.

By Twelbe Clergymen of the Church of England.

WITH A PREFACE,

BY THE REV. ALEXANDER DALLAS, M. A.,

RECTOR OF WONSTON, HANTS.

LONDON:

JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21, BERNERS STREET;

HATCHARD & SON, PICCADILLY; SEELEYS, FLEET-STREET,
AND HANOVER-STREET; AND HAMILTON, ADAMS, & co.,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.

M DCCC XLVIII.

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PREFACE.

WITH feelings of earnest thankfulness to God, who has hitherto prospered the efforts of a few of his servants, they put forth before the world, for the sixth time, the testimony they have been permitted to give concerning the blessed prospect of Messiah's coming glory, as they have been enabled to gather it out of the holy Scriptures. They consider it to be no trifling cause for gratitude to God, that they have been privileged to lift up their voices in proclaiming the truths they have endeavoured to convey in these Lectures; and while they desire to give all the glory to Him, they rejoice in the encouragement they have received from the marked attention that has been given to the subjects treated of, and in the change which appears to be passing upon the opinions of a large portion of the Church of Christ-a change which, they would humbly venture to hope, the delivery and publication of these yearly courses of Lectures has contributed, in some degree, to promote. The voice of the

decided opposers of the subjects prominently treated of in them, is less loud in its oppositionin many cases it has been silenced altogether. Numbers who were backward in expressing the growing conviction, that in its main features the view here advocated is correct, have been led to acknowledge its truth. Careless minds have been arrested and induced to pause in sericus consideration of the subject. And there are not wanting instances in which even the profane jester has become conscious of his folly, in treating with levity so awful an event as the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory-an event now stealing upon the world, while the eating and drinking, the planting and the building, is going on, as in the days of Noah and of Lot, by those who are in profound ignorance of the approaching crisis.

The extraordinary rapidity with which, in the present days, the signs of the times have taken a form, remarkably resembling those which the Scriptures describe as preparatory to the Lord's return to the earth, has, no doubt, produced the alteration of opinion just referred to. We rejoice to have been permitted to form part of the instrumentality by which the minds of Christians have been drawn to consider those scriptural anticipations, in order that, as the signs have been

developed, they might be struck by the resemblance. It is evident that some such means of quickening attention to scriptural statements with reference to the prophetic announcements was necessary, that the mind might be in a position to observe the connexion of passing events with the expected "manifestation of the sons of God,"— a connexion so entirely dependant upon the inspired declarations of God's Word, that unless the details of the occurrences were pointed out as prophesied to precede the great crisis, no defined result could be anticipated, and the Church would be unable to discern the important character of God's warning to them, which may be traced in the features of the present times. There is no natural connexion between the wild outbreaks of infidel rebellion, revolutionizing the world, and the establishment of that kingdom of heaven of which the Prince of peace is to be the Supreme Head: and although "distress of nations with perplexity" might make "men's hearts fail them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming upon the earth," it needed the Divine assurance, that "Then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory," in order to enable Christians to feel that the perplexity of nations in distress, and the failing of men's hearts for fear,

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