Transcriber's Note.
Apparent typographical errors have been corrected.
THE
New Eschatology.
SHOWING
THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF THE EARTH
AND
THE WIDE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE LETTER AND
SPIRIT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.
BY
J. G. BROUGHTON PEGG.
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1872.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Lippincott's Press,
Philadelphia.
NOTE.
This little work was published in England severalyears ago; but has never before been republished inthis country. It deals with those texts of Scripturewhich have generally been supposed to foretell the destructionof the material universe; and shows conclusivelythat these passages have been entirely misunderstoodby commentators; and that, rightly interpreted,they have no reference whatever to the outer realmof matter, but to the inner realm of mind; to theinternal condition of the church, the loss or destructionof heavenly charity, and the eclipse of genuinefaith, which it was foreseen and foretold would occur atthe close of the first Christian Dispensation.
It is proper to add, also, that, although the name ofSwedenborg nowhere occurs in the book, it is evidentthat the author was familiar with his teachings, andviewed and treated his subject from the Swedenborgian{6}stand-point. But with the lovers of spiritual truth andthe seekers after a Spiritual Christianity, this fact—nowthat so many earnest inquirers are beginning to read thewritings of the Swedish seer—will rather add to thandetract from the interest and value of the work.
THE
NEW ESCHATOLOGY.
For the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away; and there was no more sea.—Rev. xxi. 1.
While we blame the conduct of the Jews in adheringonly to the literal sense of the Scriptures, andby such adherence rejecting their Messiah, we possibly forgetthat the Christian church has followed precisely thesame line of conduct; and that to this we are indebted forthe greater part of those absurd dogmas, which have so longexposed the Gospel to the derision of its enemies. Hadmen properly discriminated between those parts of the SacredVolume which are literally true, and those which areonly apparently so, we should never have heard of the doctrinesof transubstantiation and Roman supremacy; nor ofmany other equally absurd beliefs which the generality ofChristians entertain. We should not have seen a fallibleand weak mortal exalted as Head over the church of God;we should not have heard of a morsel of bread beingchanged into the Lord's body; we should not have seen the{8}Divine Nature divided among three separate and distinctPersons; nor should we have heard of the doctrine whichwe are about to bring under consideration.
But do not mistake me. When I assert that the Scripturesin the literal sen