those who have themselves examined them very hastily, or, perhaps, not at all; but have given judgment against them, pronouncing them the offspring of insanity and delusion, simply because they have discovered or heard, that the doctrines contained in them are widely at variance from those which they have been taught to believe.
If the reader has hitherto neglected to examine these works, on account of such unfavorable representations, I would most respectfully ask him whether, in continuing to do so, he is making a right use of that reason with which God has endowed him. Even in the little work which he has now been perusing, some good reasons have been given, as I hope, for believing that the doctrines referred to are fairly derived from the Divine Word, and may be very fully confirmed by rational and scientific truth. The fact that these doctrines have been very generally rejected by the religious world, ought to constitute no reasonable presumption against them. For the Word of the Lord has plainly taught us to expect that at the second coming of the Son of Man, no faith would be found on the earth. The Lord would again come unto his own, and his own would receive him not. Divine Truth from heaven would descend into the midst of those who would profess to be earnestly seeking for it; and yet it would appear like darkness to them, from the intensity of its light.
Such is, manifestly, the teaching of the prophetic Word in regard to the second coming of the Lord. In whatever form that coming might take place, it would inevitably meet with a prompt and decided rejection from the great mass of the religious world. The very circumstances which would render it necessary that the internal meaning of the Divine Word should be more fully laid open, that higher and more perfect forms of truth should be revealed from heaven—the same circumstances would ensure the temporary rejection of such truth. For if spiritual darkness had not enveloped the religious world, there could be no reason why the Son of
