The former things are passed away. Behold, I make all things new. It is done. Rev. xxi. 4, 5, 6.
Hear Isaiah: "Proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God. Isa. lxi. 2. What is this acceptable year? Even the setting at liberty of the captives of error; the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound with material beliefs; the present binding up of the broken-hearted who have despaired of seeing the salvation of the Lord. What of the day of vengeance? 'Tis the destruction of all opposed to the bringing out of the allness of Truth—not the destruction of even the erring children of God, farther than they make sin their own. Only so far as man identifies himself with sin, does he need bear its penalty.
The pure in heart shall see God; none others can. Purification of thought and desire is the demand of the hour, in order that Christ may be apprehended. "If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come"; Matt xi. 14. the prophet of purification who points to a living present Christ, declaring the kingdom of God— the manifested supremacy of Spirit—at hand, where we may grasp and hold fast to the consciousness of it. If we will receive the announcement, we may behold the fulfilment. What is the purification demanded? Even the destruction in us, the forsaking utterly of, every thought born of the parent belief of man as fallen; as inheriting the claims of mortality, and not now the "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." This destruction of belief comes not by passive hearing, but by "doing"—by patient effort.
