THE first edition of this work was published in 1848. Each succeeding year has deepened my conviction of the certainty and momentous importance of the truths feebly and imperfectly treated of in it. When the Eastern branch of the Roman Empire shall have been resuscitated, and • when Egypt, Assyria and Jerusalem, shall have become the sphere in which those habits of thought and action now cherished in the West shall have attained the matured form of their development, the end will be very nigh. The very persons, places, and circumstances of which the Prophets and the Revelation speak, will then be actually present before the eyes of men. There is no part of God's Word that we are more prone to repudiate than His prophetic testimony. It reveals the extent of our departure from His ways ; it declares His coming judgments ; it reveals the manner in which His kingdom when it comes, will subvert the methods and constructions of men.