Publisher’s Preface
When the leader of those “angels which kept not their first estate”
(
Jude 6
) fell from his holy and exalted place in heaven, he precipitated
upon the universe of God an awful controversy.
From the very nature of the case, there must be eternal antagonism
between righteousness and sin. Between purity and pollution there can
be no coalition; nor could the supreme author of all things, the God
in whom inheres every perfection, maintain any other than an attitude
of uncompromising hostility to sin and all its fruits, to the author of
rebellion and all his followers.
Another conclusion is apparent: God, as the foe of all evil, and
at the same time omnipotent, could not, consistently with His own
nature, suffer rebellion to enter within his realms, and abide forever.
The intruder must be cast out; the disturber of the peace must be
destroyed. There can be no question as to the issue of this controversy
between a holy Creator and the rebellious creature.
That sin might make a full revelation of its nature and results to
the intelligences of all worlds, this controversy was not arrested in its
inception. When sin is finally destroyed, it will have given sufficient
evidence to satisfy every mind that it deserves the infliction; and all
will joyfully acquiesce in its merited doom.
Happily we have no evidence that, outside the apostate angels, any
other world than our own has fallen under the influence of this sinful
revolt. But this is enough to make it a matter of absorbing interest to
us; for Satan and his angels being cast out of heaven, this world has
become the sole theater of the struggle between right and wrong. All
men have become involved therein. Between them and salvation there
lies the problem of recovery from sin, the attainment to a condition of
reconciliation and acceptance with God.
What theme is therefore entitled to be regarded with more absorb-
ing interest than this great controversy—the stages through which it
has passed, its present development, and the outlook for the future.
How and under what circumstances will the controversy end? And
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