LECTURES
ON ANCIENT ISRAEL, AND THE ISRAELITISH ORIGIN OF THE MODERN NATIONS OF EUROPE
BY J.
WILSON, London, 1840
The work here presented is a reprint of the
London Third Edition. We commend the Lectures to the careful reading of all,
believing that whatever may be the conclusion at which you may arrive, you
cannot investigate the subject without profit; and we are confident you must be
interested in the topics brought forward.
We have read nothing, of human production,
with so much interest for years, as these Lectures. The prophecies concerning
Ephraim, whom God declares to be his "first born," are, that
"His seed shall become a multitude of nations;" and shall "grow
into a multitude in the midst of the earth;" or, as it is in the Hebrew,
shall "grow as fishes do increase" - sending off shoals, or colonies
: see Gen. 48:16-19. Has this prophecy failed? Is it to be counted a
conditional prophecy? The latter idea we regard as an unwarrantable assumption.
If the prophecy has failed, so may all others, If it has not failed, where is
the "multitude of nations?" Mr. Wilson attempts to show us: with what
success the reader can judge when he has read his argument. We confess we had
no conception of the strength of evidence in favor of such a theory till we
read his work. We do not vouch for the truth of his theory, but if it be
correct it will do more to unlock prophecy, and settle difficult portions of
it, than any other that we ever read; it will do more to wake up interest in
the Bible, and to break down infidelity, than any other, and all other theories
that have been broached since the Christian era: that is our opinion.
If the view maintained in Mr. Wilson's
Lectures be true, it is a subject of deep interest to us all; for, in that
case, the inhabitants of tile United States are a part of the "lost tribes
of Israel," and the literal posterity of Jacob; and particularly are the Anglo-Saxons
of the posterity of Ephraim, the youngest son of Joseph, of whom it is
said, "His horns (or power,) are like the horns of unicorns; with them he
shall push the people together to the ends of the earth;" Deut. 31:17. His
grand characteristic was to be that of advance and progression; before whom no
other people could stand. Such ever has been and still is the prominent trait
of character manifested by the Anglo-Saxon race. The rapid progress and
increase of this race is matter of wonder and astonishment to all; and that the
God of providence has some design in causing them and their institutions to
spread abroad, compassing the globe, seems to be the impression of all
reflecting men, without ever once having suspected their real origin, and the
prophecies that are on record in relation to them.
Preface to the
First London Edition. Page 6
Preface to the Third London Edition. Page 7
With these remarks of Mr. Wilson we now
present the work to the American public, and especially to the attention of all
students of prophecy. Our aim in doing it is to increase light on the
Scriptures, and raise an additional barrier against that infidel spirit that
has already set "in like a flood," but against which, we doubt not, "the
Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard."