But I trust the subject of this little volume may not be altogether ill-suited to our present circumstances, inasmuch as by directing us to the church’s dangers, it may lead us to pray for the church’s safety. If the view taken of St. Paul’s prophecy be correct, we live in times of peculiar peril, and must be prepared for a further increase of seduction and apostacy within the visible church. How earnest then should be the prayers of God’s people, in behalf of God’s ambassadors! He alone can make us able ministers of the New Testament; He alone can preserve us as faithful witnesses for Christ. I know well, brethren, that you have prayed habitually for me, and for that assurance I most heartily thank both God and you. And now I leave it with you as my earnest and solemn charge, that you will not relax those prayers, but increase and multiply them in behalf of him who is about to fill my place. Let his hands be strengthened by the believing intercessions of a faithful flock; let him go into your pulpit borne up by prayer. And may the God of all grace shower down both on you and him every rich blessing of his Spirit! May we hear the glad tidings of your undivided fellowship in the Gospel! And may an abundant answer be given to my unworthy though unceasing supplication, “that your hearts may be comforted, being knit together in love, unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ!” EDWARD HOARE. _Richmond_, _Feb._ 1846. LECTURE I. “BEHOLD I come quickly,” was the last promise, “Even so come, Lord Jesus,” the last prayer, in Scripture. The glorious prospect of this quick return was the constant joy of the Apostles and early disciples of our Lord. Nor can any thing be more marked than the contrast between our thoughts and theirs, in reference to this important subject. They were for ever anticipating the time, and falling into error through their eager haste for the coming kingdom; we are too prone to stave off the thought of it, as a thing distant and uncertain. They could not rest without an eager inquiry as to the times and seasons of his approach; we, on the other hand, are tempted to sit still in listless apathy, with the eye blinded to the facts of history, with the ear deaf to the voice of prophecy, and so regardless of the knowledge really given us by God. They lived at the outset of the church’s pilgrimage, with a distance of at least 1,800 years between them and their joyous hope; and yet they most eagerly inquired, “When shall these things be?” We live on the very verge of its conclusion, with the great climax full in view; yet we go on as if the world were to last for ever, steeped in apathy the most profound, with reference alike to the event itself and to its times.