THERE are some times fixed in prophecy, which by diligence, attention, and application men may arrive to some understanding of. There are indeed some times and seasons, the knowledge of which is not to be attained unto; and it would be wrong, as well as in vain, curiously to search into them. _It is not for us to know the times or the seasons_, _which the Father hath put in his own power_; for he has _determined the times before appointed_, when every thing that he has purposed or promised shall come to pass; and he has fixed a _time for every purpose under the heaven_, for the performance of every thing he has designed shall be; _a time to be born_, _and a time to die_, and for every intermediate event; but these times are not known beforehand, until things are brought into execution. There are others and very remarkable events, the times of which are pointed at in prophecy; and which with diligence and application, a knowledge of them may in some measure be attained unto: as for instance, the first coming of Christ into this world to save men: the time for it was not only agreed upon and settled between the Father and the Son, called _the fulness of time_, but there were several prophetic hints of it; nay, not only was it described by some general circumstances, as that it should be before the second temple was destroyed, since he was to come into it and while the sceptre was in the tribe of Judah; but the precise time was fixed by Daniel’s seventy weeks, or four hundred years, which were to commence from a date given him; and before the expiration of which the Messiah was to come: and so as he by reading Jeremiah’s books knew the time when the Babylonish captivity should end; another by reading his prophecies might know when the Messiah would come; and accordingly about the time when those weeks were drawing near to an expiration, there were many that were looking for the Messiah and redemption by him, as knowing that it was about the time by these weeks that he should come. There is a time set for the second coming and God in his times will show him, or cause him openly to appear; and though he will come in an hour we know not of, yet there are some circumstances pointed out in the word of God by which it may be known that it is nigh at hand; as that the day when the Son of man shall be revealed shall be as the days of Noah and Lot, when men indulged themselves in pleasure, lived in great security, unaware of the ruin coming upon them; and that when the Son of man cometh, faith will not be found in the earth; whether this be understood of the grace or doctrine of faith, or of faith with respect to Christ’s coming: and when we compare these things with the present times, and consider the luxury, love of pleasure, carnal security and infidelity that abound among us, we might conclude that the coming of Christ is just at hand, were it not that there are many things which require time yet to be fulfilled