Publisher's Synopsis
An excerpt from the first chapter: NEW TRUTH FOR A NEW AGE.
"And I saw heaven opened."-Rev. XIX. 11.
THE mental activity of our age is Without a parallel in history. The human mind is wider awake than ever before. Rational inquiry, upon all subjects, is pursued with greater animation and a quicker intelligence, than it used to be in the former ages. Since the middle of the last century a new era, - by common consent, - has dawned in human affairs; and human society everywhere wears a new aspect.
As we look abroad and contemplate the scene, in its multiform details, we can see, all around us, the words of the prophecy, - "Behold, I make all things new," - in the process of rapid fulfilment.
Even before it began, the Seer of the New Jerusalem had declared that the movement would come, and had laid open in his writings the spiritual causes which were to produce it. He had announced that the things foretold in the Book of Revelation are at this day fulfilled; that the Last Judgment predicted in the Scriptures was executed in the World of Spirits, intermediate between heaven and hell, in the year 1757. This, consisting as it did of a separation - a simple separation-of the good from among the evil, and of the evil from the good, sending each to their permanent abodes - above and below, cleared that intermediate world of its old inhabitants, thus removing the dark cloud of bad influences which hung upon mankind, leaving that world open and free for the descent, through it, of pure and good influences to men out of heaven, or through heaven from the Lord.
And, in connection with this, he announced, too, the second Advent of the Lord; taking place, not as a personal and visible return of Him to our earth to destroy the world, but coming, as He is represented here in the 19th chapter of Revelation, as "the Word of God," i. 6., in and through a fuller revelation of His own Divine Truth; by an exposition of the deeper meanings of His Word, from beginning to end; by the disclosure of the exact meaning of all divine prophecy; by unfolding, in his writings, the states of the departed and of life among the angels.
These events, coming together, mark the commencement of a New Dispensation, indicated in so much divine prophecy, and looked forward to in all ages of the Christian Church as the "latter day glory;" predicted in Daniel as the divine or heavenly kingdom to be established in the latter days, to endure forever; and signified by the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation.
It is these great causes, -instruments in the hand of Divine Providence, and vivified by a constant influx descending from Him, - that, as we believe, have inaugurated this New Age and are pushing forward its developments. Look at the vast preparations which are and have been making everywhere around us for the introduction of some new state of human society, and the commencement of some new phase of the world's history; old abuses everywhere melting away and being removed out of sight; a quickened sense of justice and of right everywhere prevailing, so that institutions of all kinds are forced - sooner or later-to square themselves by them; benevolence towards the unfortunate classes everywhere felt; political and civil freedom coming to be accorded to the masses, nearly the world over; great movements taking place in the religious world towards the liberalization of sentiment, and the exaltation of a true Christian life as the great thing to be aimed at; intelligence quickened and illustrated by vast stores of new and extraordinary knowledge; a new continent given to the world in the discovery and settlement of America; and a new sky given in the discovery of the Copernican system and the revelations of astronomy, as preparations for this new age; and, since, a new opening of the physical earth to our view, in the revelations of geology.
