For the entire text of Irving's English translation of Lacunza's book, click the following links Volume I Volume II.

"When I obtained this light, I did not make haste to communicate it to any one, but pondered the matter for several months in my own heart, until there was not the shadow of a doubt left upon my mind that I had been in error, if the word of God was in the right. And perceiving upon the grounds laid down in a discourse which I have published under the title of “Babylon and Infidelity foredoomed,” that the time was near at hand, and the series of thick-coming judgments and fearful perplexities was just about to open, I felt it as an immediate and overpowering duty which I owed to the Lord and to his unawakened church, to make known that sure conviction to which I had attained. But still my fears withheld me, and I know not how long these unfaithful fears would have withheld me from entering with good earnest on the warfare, when the Lord himself, as oft his manner is, plunged me into the fight whether I would or not. Last Christmas, which fell upon a Sabbath, purposing to warn my flock against the several indulgences to which at that season we are all exposed, I chose for my text the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th verses of the fifth chapter of 1 Thessalonians, and beginning my discourse by an exposition of the preceding context, found that I had insensibly wandered too far into that subject which was near my heart, to return again; which feeling as the admonition of the spirit, I feared to shun any longer to declare the whole counsel of God, and so it came to pass that upon the day set apart for the commemoration of the first advent, I was found maintaining the doctrine of the second advent. It was this day twelve-months, a day to be remembered in the history of my ministry; for which, not I only, but many souls now walking in the hope of thine appearing have reason to bless thee, oh thou great Head of thy Church! The doctrine which I maintained, was, that "the coming of the Lord in judgment, from the time of Enoch, the first of inspired preachers, until the time of John, the last of them, had been upheld before the elect church as the great object of their hope and desire; and for these three great reasons, - 1st. That then the number of the elect is accomplished; 2nd. That then their warfare is ended; and 3rd. That their kingdom is come: while on the other hand, it had been equally upheld before the reprobate and unbelieving, as the great object of fear and argument of repentance; 1st. because their kingdom is ended, 2ndly. their day of grace concluded; and 3rdly. their judgment, i.e. of the quick is accomplished, and the fate of all their generations sealed until the judgment of the dead, which cometh not till after the reign of the saints and the elect, designated in scripture, "a thousand years," and among divines, the millennium." Having broken ground in this great controversy, I found it necessary to maintain myself, and to that end took up certain great and strong positions, which seemed to me the keys of the whole debatable land; of which positions these three were the chief. First; That the present visable church of Gentiles, which hath been the depository of the oracles and the sacraments, and the ordinances, since the Jewish state was disolved, I mean the mixed multitude who are baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, under that seal including Protestants, Roman Catholics, Greek church, Armenians, &c. and all the sects of each, as Scottish, English, Irish, .... with the dissenters and seceders from each, that this body of baptized men, which I call the Gentile church, who should every one of them have been a saint; being "by baptism ingrafted in Christ Jesus to be made partakers of his justice, whereby our sins are covered and remitted;" standeth threatened in the Holy Scriptures because of its hypocrisies, idolatries, superstitions, infidelity, and enormous wickedness, "because it hath transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, and broken the everlasting covenant" (Isaiah xxiv.) with such a terrible judgment, as hath not been, not ever shall again be seen upon the earth; in the which deluge of wrath she shall be clean disolved, as the synagogue was heretofore in the destruction of Jerusalem, when she in like manner had filled up the measure of her iniquity: - which fearful consumation I judge to be close at hand, both by the signs of the times, and from the prophetic numbers expressly given to guide us in the anticipation of these great Gentile judgments, which are mentioned in scripture wherever and whenever the coming of the Lord is mentioned. Secondly; When the Lord shall have finished the taking of witness against the Gentiles, and summed up the present dispensation of testimony in this great verdict of judgment, and while the execution is proceding, he will begin to prepare another ark of testimony, or rather to make the whole earth an ark of testimony; and to that end he will turn his Holy Spirit unto his ancient people the Jews, and bring unto them those days of refreshing spoken of by all the holy prophets since the world began; [pp. iv,v] Thirdly. That these judgments upon Gentile nations and all the earth, he will finish by his own personal appearance in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; raising those who sleep in Jesus, and changing those of the Gentile church who still abide in life; and preserving the mourning Jewish church, as Goshen was preserved in the plagues of Egypt: and when the promised land shall have been cleared of all intruders, and they themselves by suffering perfected for the habitation of it, he shall lead them into it with a mighty and outstretched arm: and sit upon the throne of David, judging and seeking judgment, and hasting righteousness; and send forth the law from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and rule among the nations, and be the Prince of universal peace; using in this judgment and government of the earth his risen saints, who shall be ministers to execute whatever his pleasure is. And thus, Satan being cast out, and the Prince of light, and the heavenly Jerusalem, the dwelling place of his elect church being present, the Jerusalem on earth, with the house of Jacob, and all the nations shall enjoy that fulness of peace and joy, that millennial reign of righteousness, for which we all hope and pray, and diligently labour. These three points of doctrine concerning the Gentile church, the future Jewish and universal church, and the personal advent of the Lord to destroy the one and to build up the other, I opened and defended out of the Scriptures from Sabbath to Sabbath..." [pp. vi,vii]. "I sought very diligently to define from the scriptures what was the precise place and purpose of the present spiritual dispensation, which God hath interposed between a dispensation of a local and typical character upon the one hand, and a dispensation yet to be, of a universal and real character upon the other; both centering in and radiating out from the Jewish people." [p. ix] "This idea being clearly demonstrated to my mind as the root and germ of the dispensations both Jew and Gentile, or of "earthly things" as distinguished from "heavenly things," or the things of the kingdom, (John iii) it was a very easy matter to derive and set forth the wisdom and adaption of those particular forms which the purpose assumed, under the one and the other of these great prepatory institutions of God. ...[p. x] "[F]or the declaration of the righteousness which is by faith; in order that the mystery might come full before the observation of men, and be a witness against them, whether they would read the written word or not: this they had in the temple and sacrifices and levitical priesthood of the former dispensation, and this we have now in the two sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the Communion of the Saints, who are partakers of Christ's sufferings, and "fill up that which is wanting of these sufferings for his body's sake, that is the church." These three great parts are necessary to express and embody that idea of witness and testimony for the conviction of the world, which we believe to be the germinating principle of this prepatory dispensation." [p. xi] "The restoration of the Jewish nation, to be again the Church of God, and their re-establishment in their own land, to be the head of the nations, and the centre of the earth's unity," [p. xii] "The epistles to the seven churches in Asia, to whom the whole book of the Apocalypse is addressed, do show that it was intended for the instruction and consolation of the Gentile and not the future Jewish church as my author would have it. Upon the same grounds, on which I conclude that Isaiah was inspired to be a witness to the Jewish church and nation, and believe that all the terms there used of Jerusalem, Zion, Judah, Israel, &c. are to be literally understood of them, and by right belong to them in the first intention, and will certainly be fulfilled of them, I do conclude that the Apocalypse belongeth to the Gentile church, and was given for her instruction and consolation, and will be all fulfilled in her ... From whence we conclude, as well as from the emblematical character of the whole book, that if Jewish names do occur in it, as in the sealing of the tribes, and in the new Jerusalem which cometh down from heaven, they ought not to be understood literally, but emblematically, as Egypt, and Sodom, and Babylon are." [p. xxxviii] "Christmas Day, 1826."