p. iiiReader, bear with the seeming arrogance of our title. We live in a day when a refined agnosticism has undermined all earnest conviction of religious truth, and when, therefore, it may strike you as a violation of the canons of good taste to express a confident view on the subject. But facts are not changed by canons of taste. There is such a thing as eternal truth, however daintily good breeding may ignore it; and if there has been a revelation (which Christendom assumes, and which this book pre-supposes, on grounds that no hostile criticism can overthrow or scientific discovery exclude), that eternal truth must be an attainable thing, and when attained, so precious as to justify ardour and confidence in its enunciation.
Our title is a proposition—not an invective. The question proposed for consideration is a question for critical investigation. We invite attention to the evidence and the argument. They are strictly within the logical sphere. They can be examined and dismissed if found wanting. What the title affirms is that Christendom, the ostensible repository of revealed truth, is away from that truth. But in reality the title goes further than this. By implication, it asserts certain things to be the truth that are not accepted by Christendom. It offers the proof of the doctrines that are according to truth, as the best demonstration that Christendom is astray from those doctrines. The demonstration is by the Holy Scriptures. To these Christendom is professedly subject, and it is in the light of these (estimated as Christendom estimates them, viz., as divine writings) that the question is considered throughout. It cannot be an unacceptable thing to earnest believers in the Bible to have it debated whether their conceptions of duty and destiny are according to the Bible. This is what is done in the following lectures.
It is proper to explain that this is not the first time these lectures have appeared, though new in their present form. They first saw the light under the name Twelve Lectures, about twenty-two years ago (Feb. 1862); they came out then in fortnightly parts (one lecture per fortnight) in response to the demand of those who had read and heard of them. The lectures themselves were in the first instance delivered in Huddersfield in discharge of an individual duty on the part of the lecturer. A second edition of 1,000 copies (this time stitched together as one pamphlet), followed in eighteen months (Nov., 1863); and a third edition of 1,400 copies in another similar period (June, 1865). In two more years (July, 1867), a revised and enlarged edition of 2,000 copies was published in compliance with a continuous demand from all quarters, after the book had been “out of print” for twelve months. In this edition, five new lectures were added, and the original lectures thoroughly revised. A little over twelve months sufficed to p. iv entirely exhaust the fourth edition without aid from public sale (as in all the previous cases); and after some delay, a fifth edition of 4,000 copies was issued in 1869. In this edition, the lectures appeared for the first time in cloth boards, in proper book form. The type-composition was stereotyped so as to be ready for future supplies. It was not long before the whole of the first issue of this edition was sold. What has taken place since then has simply been the re-issue, thousand after thousand, from the stereotype plates of the fifth edition. How many copies have circulated thus it would take some time to find out; but they number many thousands. The author little imagined at the time he wrote them that any such fate was in store for them. He wrote them for delivery only, and supposed their work was done when a small Huddersfield audience had heard them. That they have revolutionised the religious convictions of great numbers of people, the author has in his possession much written evidence, and much has appeared in the pages of the monthly Christadelphian (edited by the author) for nineteen years past.
The time has now come for issuing the work in the present improved form. Many and many a time has the author been asked to publish in larger type. Not till now has it been in his power to comply with this request. Often has he been sensible of the literary deficiencies of various parts of the work, at which he cannot wonder when he remembers they were written when he had scarcely entered manhood, and when consequently were sure to be exhibited the blemishes inevitably arising from rawness and inexperience. But it was easier to see the deficiencies than to remove them. Constant laborious occupation in literary channels left little of the time and energy needful for the work of revision in the thorough form that the lapse of time seemed to call for.
A conjunction of favourable circumstances has, however, at last allowed of it (though not without some severity of industry) and now the book is sent forth in a form that will, probably, call for no further alteration. The alterations, such as they are, are more in manner than matter. The doctrines advocated in Christendom Astray are the same as those which Twelve Lectures have recommended in thousands of homes in all British-spoken parts of the earth, for over twenty years past. The only difference is that they may be presented in a form a little more adapted to the needs of the age which has given them birth.
The change of title seemed to be called for in a variety of ways. “Twelve Lectures” conveyed no idea to those unacquainted with the character of the work. One gentleman recently told the author that he had the book for years in his library, without having his curiosity sufficiently awakened to look into it. Had the title been indicative of its character, he thinks it would not have lain so long unattended to, and he would the sooner have rejoiced in the spiritual emancipation of which he has become the subject since the reading. The new title briefly and pithily embodies the whole contention of the lectures.
We have preserved the form of lectures, instead of changing them into chapters, in the conviction that the lecture form appeals more powerfully to popular interest than the more classical division of chapters. But we have altered the numbering of the lectures. Originally twelve, they became, in the p. v fifth edition, seventeen lectures, for which, however, the original name of twelve was retained, for the sake of preserving the identity of the title. The added lectures were simply interspersed among the others, with the same numbers, and distinguished by the addition of the letter A in parenthesis. It was felt at the time that this made the book somewhat uncouth, but it seemed the lesser of two evils. Now, however, there is no need for it. A new title makes the numbering of the lectures immaterial, and they are consequently re-numbered in natural order. A new lecture is added on “The ways of Christendom inconsistent with the Commandments of Christ,” which makes the number of lectures eighteen. Each lecture bears its natural number in consecutive order to the end.
The new book is printed in larger type, and in larger size of page, and is in all respects artistically superior to the various editions of Twelve Lectures. This fact, however, necessitates an increase of price, which the author regrets; probably, however, readers, when they get it into their hands, will think it cheap at the enhanced price.
It remains to be said, as remarked in the prefaces now suspended, that the tendency of the age is in a direction, and assumes forms that are embarrassing and even distressing to the earnest seeker after truth. Thinkers, where not avowed Atheists, are sinking into a kind of Deism, which is fatal to the claims of Christianity. The sober-minded and devout are lost on the polemical labyrinths of the time, or driven to the extremity of shutting their eyes against every form of investigation, and committing themselves with fatuitous resignation to a faith that will not stand the most ordinary exercise of reason, and which presents quite as many discomforts as consolations. The situation is greatly complicated by the fact that the Bible is misrepresented in the doctrines presented by the accredited religious teachers of past and present times.
The Bible is no more responsible for the views and tenets of Christendom than it is for Mormonism. The Bible propounds a system of doctrine which is compatible with all the evidences of sense, as systematised in the material sciences of the age, and which at the same time commends itself to the moral instincts of every fully developed mind, as supplying those links, in the absence of which, the human understanding is baffled in its attempts to fathom the mysteries of existence. The reading of the following lectures is invited in proof of this. The great principles of eternal truth revealed in the writings of Moses, the prophets, and the apostles, are obscured and nullified by the religious teaching of the present day, which investigation will show to be nothing more than ancient fables dressed up in the garb of Bible phraseology.
Lecture XVI. discusses the prophetic bearings of current political events. The result is to show that the times appointed for Gentile ascendancy are all either run out or on the point of running out in the present age of the world. The state of affairs is shown to confirm this conclusion of chronology. Prophetic anticipations have been realised in a way that leaves no doubt of the correctness of the deductions. From the outbreak of European revolution, in 1848, to the British occupation of Egypt, in 1882, and the commencement of the Jewish colonisation of Palestine (on however small a scale), there has been an unbroken series of expected signs of the Lord’s approach. The only point of failure has been as to the place in the p. vi programme at which the Lord’s appearing would occur, and this is a failure not of the prophetic word but of human estimate of probability. It seemed likely that the ending of Papal coercive power would be the time for the Lord to appear. The ending of the Papal coercive power came at the expected time, but not the Lord, and because of this, the thoughtless cry, “failure.” True failure there has not been; on the contrary, prophetic expectations that were truly warranted have in all particulars been realised in a very wonderful manner.
Parallel cases in ancient Bible times indicate the nature of the present situation. First, there is the case of the Exodus. Israel left Egypt thirty years after the expiry of the period (of 400 years) specified as the duration of Israel’s sojourning in the land of the stranger. Then there is the case of the restoration from Babylon. This was not accomplished till a generation after the period (70 years) fixed as the duration of their captivity, But in both these cases, events tending to the development of the foretold results SIGNALISED THE EXACT ENDING OF THE PERIOD. In the case of the Exodus, Moses, who was fifty years of age at the end of the 400, had appeared on the scene, and “supposed his brethren would have understood how that God, by his hand, would deliver them” (Acts vii. 25). In the case of the restoration from Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar’s dynasty was overthrown by Darius, who belonged to a people favourable to Israel.
In the present case, all we need look for in this respect is transpiring before our eyes. The events prophetically characteristic of the termination of the “times of the Gentiles,” are the facts of contemporary history. Papal ascendancy is at an end in the world of politics, secular and ecclesiastical. It came to an end in 1866, with the blow which levelled Austrian domination in Germany. The Prussian sword cut the Concordat, and, in the discomfiture of Austria, smote to the ground the prop which for over a thousand years has maintained the temporal supremacy of the court of Rome. This is an eloquent sign of the times, which derives additional significance from the concurrent downfall of church establishments in Italy, Spain, and England, and the uprise and prosperity of the truth.
Of the exact date of the Lord’s appearing we have no information. We are in the era of that wonderful event, and it may be the occurrence of any day; but “of that day and hour knoweth no man.” We are in the position the disciples occupied in relation to the day of God’s judgment on Jerusalem: we wait in a state of indefinite expectancy, knowing that the event looked for is near, even at the door; but not knowing exactly how long.
The truth developed in a complete form is rapidly creating a people for the name of the Lord at his return. Such a work is a necessary prelude to the advent. The apostolic testimony gives us to understand that Jesus finds a people alive at his coming. Hence, their development is a necessity of the end. It is meet that Christ should have a people contemporary with the developments of the end.
At his coming in the flesh, John the Baptist, by preaching, gathered from Israel a select people, to whom in due course Christ was manifested by the descent of the Holy Spirit, and by means of whom, in their ultimate operations, he proclaimed the way of life to the world, vanquished paganism, and enthroned p. vii his name traditionally in the high places of the earth. His coming in the Spirit draws near; a people is in preparation, increasing in numbers, faith, zeal, and service, to whom, when their development has reached a certain point, he will be revealed, with the thousands whom he shall bring from the dead by his power. May reader and writer alike have the supreme happiness of being included in their glorious number!
The Author.
Birmingham, December 18, 1883.