Human will and reason is greatly lifted up in this age; and in this second part, I set forth the self in its fallen workings, and the enslaved state of man's will and the blindness of his reason, and the helplessly unceasing vain and dark walk that is his life. I explain the dominion of sin, and the power that Satan exercises over us, how he is our master and we his servants. How we imitate and conform to him. How we willingly and necessarily do only evil. These are not pages of inconsequential doctrine, which abound in these times; pages helping people unto temporal benefits and deceptive happiness. We are surrounded by minds that are snares, and that will kill our souls, flatter us in our wrongs, and that desire a following, and want to make money off us. They are lost, and love to serve corruption, and will strive to have us be like them.
We must become against the world, and flesh, and transgression, and lies. If this we be not, we will suffer divine justice. We must seek to be saved from the dreadful eternity that will be once our earthly life comes to an end. Things ought to be changed with us, and to all who despise the truth of being spiritually born again in this life as foolish and fancy, I explain it to you, and lead you to it. All who scoff at the truth of being separated from the world, I say I go higher, and show the necessity of holiness in every part of life; of surrendering wholly to the will of another Being. A shocking unreasonable thought to the ears of many who have in a practical or speculative manner cast away trusting in, and relying on God, as to be a weak thing to do.
The world now considers itself above and mightier, and needing not to stoop to the natural and supernatural teachings of God's word, and to His grace, and it scoffs at the thought of direct and special intervention of Him in our lives. I make its necessity and its working evident. There are many false teachers or doctors now. They of art and the cinema, the experts on mental health, and the psychologists, who so perceptively speak to help people, and work for the good development of society, being so highly developed in rationals, and so conscious and wise about the mind and body and spirit and power, and who reckon their self-dependence as some advancement in morals, as having reached the peak in ethic. So many there have been, and are, we know their names, they speak and the world hears them, loves them, espouses them, and in this book let us know why, and see what we and they without the grace of regeneration truly are and know. And my Christian friends, hear and find yourselves cleaving the more strongly to the light.
