Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/20

 facts considered in themselves, but about the true meaning of the narratives in which they are related; and this resolves itself into a question of interpretation and evidence. We believe that the opinion conventionally held upon those subjects cannot be fairly and reasonably maintained from the terms of the predictions; and those opinions have been put away by us for the adoption of others, which commend themselves more fully to our judgment and conscience. As before observed, the views intended to be taught are, that the last judgment and second coming of the Lord are events which have been accomplished in comparatively modern times, and that the exact meaning of the predictions which refer to those subjects could not be ascertained before, because the evidences necessary for their interpretation had not previously transpired. It is a received canon that prophecy can never be clearly understood until the time of its fulfilment.

The reader is thus, at the very outset, put in possession of the main drift of this work. He sees, at once, something of the points which are proposed to be expanded and explained. It is hoped that, as he proceeds, he will meet with nothing to give any just offence to his preconceptions or his reason. If the propositions are true, and the evidences on which they rest can be sustained, we have no doubt that the difficulties which may seem to surround our views at this early stage of their announcement, will gradually abate as the perusal proceeds; but if they remain after the argument is completed, we have no remedy, and all that we can say under such circumstances is, that truth is no match for an unfavorable bias.

Had it becn thought desirable, these doctrines need not have been set forth as the doctrines of the New Jerusalem: the authority of Swedenborg might have been concealed