"Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me."-John v. 39.

"The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy."-Rev. xix. 10.

"We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts."-2 Peter i. 19.

PREFACE.

THE believing Christian who "hath the witness in himself," does not require to be told that the citadel of divine truth in which his soul is at peace, and fenced from the assaults of unbelief, is, under divine grace, the internal spiritual evidence of its own truth which the Scripture carries with it, " as the sun is seen by its own light;" "for Christianity is within a man, even as he is a being gifted with reason. And to such all the various external evidences, convincing as they are, seem but the out-works or defensive bastions provided to meet the enemy in every direction.

For so varied are the phases of unbelief and the obstacles stumbled at, that each requires to be separately dealt with. What suffices to convince one, leaves another the prey to his own peculiar objections. Hence it is that the Divine Author of the sacred volume has provided that His "word of truth" should be accompanied by such a host of testimonies of every kind, each adapted to the proof required by each individual mind, that so every caviller should be silenced, and " every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Thus whilst the book of revelation presents specific difficulties on certain points not yet made clear to man's understanding, a

1 Coleridge's Table Talk, pages 12, 13.