The new light ...

Front matter

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Preface

Every author who solicits a hearing from the public, has, or ought to have, some justifiable reasons or causes moving him to the publication of his sentiments. I have my reasons inducing me to publish the following work, which, in a short way I will now submit to the public. If my reasons be good, I have confidence that everv Imnest man will hear me patiently through: but vrhether they be good or bad must be left to the judgment of the reader himself. For my own part, I feel justified, upon a strict survey of the whole ground and foundation of the Christian faith, however others may think, in laying m}^ Book before the public; because 1 think it will do good. To do good is the highest desire of my heart: to do good and to receive good in imparting it to others, are the objects for which, as I believe, 1 have been endued with life and means; and before divine providence calls me away to a better worlds I desire to write and to leave behind me, in this, the reasons of my faith in the plan of salvation as proposed in the Holy Scriptures; together with such remarks and inferences as I have made and drawn from bible fact and bible doctrine. I believe lam required to do this by the following considerations,

1. It is well known to all persons of any reflection, that the Christian World, so called, is divided into a multitude of contending sects, and parties, all more or less impinging and opposing each other — all having individual and selfish interests of their

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own to look after and maintain. This state of things has been from its beginning, and is to the present hour, vastly prejudicial to the true interests and influences of the gospel. It is the source of much of the unbelief and deism and atheism which spread over the land like " the pestilence that walketh in darkness,^' or as the plague "that wasteth at noon-day. '^ I have proved, in the following work, that the whole of this sectarianism is wrong — that it is wholly opposed to the letter and spirit of the gospel — that having its origin in the principle of moral death, it leads and must lead its votaries to confusion. Reader, do not pre-judge me, as to this matter: read the articles on this subject, consult the evidences I have adduced, and, if you are a truth-loving man, you will concur with me that the whole of Romish and Protestant Sectarianism is wrong — that it came neither from God, nor the Bible, nor from the Prophets, nor Apostles; but has its source in the " good words and fair speeches," of men "who follow notour Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly." Read me first, and then judge.

2. As we have in our country at this time a number of men who style themselves philosophers, or lovers of wisdom, but who not only deny the being and attributes of the God of the Bible, but the mission and Sonship of Jesus Christ, together with the inspirations of the Holy Spirit,! deemit proper to intersperse through my book some brief demonstrations of the truth that there is aGorf all-wise, merciful, just and good — that he has spoken to the human family — that Jesus of Nazareth is his only proper Son —

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that the Holy Spirit is given to all persons who believe and obey the truth — that the Apostles of Jesus have, to this day, divine and infallible authority over, and wisdom in the church to guide all its faithful members to eternal life — and that the Holy Scriptures, given "at sundry times and in divers manners" to the ancients, have come down to us pure and holy, and form now the only authoritative and infallible rule of faith and manners. To this department of my work the attention of the unbeliever is particular!}' solicited. Let him read my arguments and proofs before he ventures to laugh and make himself merry. Let him remember, that death to him, if he refuse to believe and be quickened by the word of Christ, and thus to become ^'a new creature," will be, what he says it is, an eternal or "an everlasting destruction!" Over such a scene can he laugh, and yet hold any claim to the appellation of a rational being? Who can derive any comfort from so revolting and appalling a fact, while he feels within himself an unquenchable desire to live forever, and for ever to be happy? Unbeliever, before you begin to laugh and ridicule, go to the grave-yard and survey the mighty army of its dead; ponder well the import of death and the unseen world; tell us the secrets of " the house appointed for all living-/' or, tell, if you can, what death is, or own, like a lover of truth, that all yonr philosophy is dumb and blind to what it is! Before you utter your scorn at the christian faith, ask whether there be not something in it most agreeable to the human heart, to all our feelings, to our love of

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life, to every thing intelligent within us, and to eve» ry impulse and passion of O'lr nature. If you wish to live for ever, as I know you do, there is no hope for such a life in all the vast Empire of Almighty God except in the gospel of his Son, in the resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ the Lord.

3. As there are many, even among professing Christians, who, as it appears to me, are ignorant of the way and manner in which men are commanded to come to God and be saved; who do not understand how to become christians or saints — I have thought proper to give this subject a part of my attention. ]n order to do which, 1 have fully proved that Jesus Christ has all authority in heaven and on the earth; that his laws are binding on all intelligent human beings; and that, what he requires to be believed and done by one such being in order to salvation, he requires of all. Following out this chain of truth, I have run upon the popular errors of the times, which errors I have endeavored to explode by the power of truth, in such a manner as will give no offence to the lovers of truth. I have produced the authority of Jesus Christ and his apostles: if men will not hear or venerate this, it must be because they love darkness rather than light, their deeds being evil. I have made this way plain, as the way to the Way; so that, those who are out of Christ THE WAY, may find access to him and be saved from their sins.

4. As the religious world hitherto, for many hundreds of years, have, for the most part, been ignorant of how far the gospel holds claim upon man-

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kind — over what persons its authority and claim extend — I have felt called upon to set this matter in its true light. And here Iwill state, as it were in advance to the reader, that there are three classes or portions of the human family that will not be benefitted, in the next world, by the gospel — that is, who cannot receive the blessings which are promised only to the believer who is holy.

The first class are infants. These will rest in the sleep of death, an everlasting and eternal repose, and be as though they never had been, I see nothing in the Bible that teaches or implies their resurrection. They appear to be parts of the human material which, by the necessity of the case, are forbidden to live in this world, or to come to knowledge; for, as will be seen, knowledge or intelligence influenced or sanctified by the wisdom from above, is necessary before death to convey the right to the tree of life afterwards.

The second class are idiots. TheBibleis wholly silent about the future life of these unfortunate beings, as we would call them — though in fact they will be vastly more fortunate, humanly speaking, than thousands of the great kings, nobles and lords of the earth, who, in lives of protracted impiety have disgraced both their own nature and the name of the Son of God. The idiot will sleep, and sleep for ever; he will sleep so soundly that neither the iToice of the Archangel, nor the trump of God will molest his slumbers. He is a fragment of humanity, not a full man, and it seems that no account is hereafter to be taken of him. It oppears to me

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that the future world neither needs his presence, nor provides him a habitation. Neither he nor the little infant is to be punished— for this would be unjust: death is their full and eternal annihilation. Having never enjoyed intellectual and rational existence, there is no injustice in withholding it from them, any more than there is in withholding it from the dust of the field.

Much the same may be said of the Pagans, or heathen^ the third class, who never heard of God, or knew any thing of his law. Having known nothing they did nothing, could do nothing to merit everlasting punishment, and therefore it is not robbing them to keep from them what they never had. Hence, they, too, will never live beyond the grave. Death is their end. When they died, it was " as the beast dieth '^— they become as though they had not been.

Upon the whole, it is a principle of the Bible, "that he that cometh to God must believe that he is, that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,^' and that, '• without faith it is impossible to please God*" But, neither the heathen, nor unintelligent infants, nor idiots, have faith in God: they do not, therefore, in this moral sense, either please or displease him — -there is no moral action required of them— they are irresponsible^ — they know no lavr and have broke none. If, by reasoni of their progenitors they have come to a fragmentary life, this, if it be a fault, is. i>ot theirs, but that of those progenitors, or an inevitable fatality of their nature. I do not know that these views are very important;

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but all truth is more or less so according to the influences it is designed to exert upon the human spirit. Truth is as a chain made up of a certain number of links^ eYOYV one of which is important to the form and consistence of the whole chain.

5. As the times are becoming more and more corrupt, iniquity finds new channels and forms of development, and seaks to maintain, at the same time, its old and time-worn institutions: so that I find it incumbent on me to lift up a standard against some particular things that seem to me to interfere with the benevolence of the gospel. Among these I would name Free-Masonry and Odd-Fellowship. I have paid some attention to these secret societies, and shown them all to be uncalled-for modes of charity. If the gospel fail to warm the heart and reform the life; if it cannot open the channels of love and benevolence to the poor and needy, and '^ make the widow's heart sing for joy;" if '''■ the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience," an angel of mercy descending from lieaven to bless mankind in the form of Jesus dying for sin, buried, risen from the dead, cannot fill the heart with desires to do and to receive good-— all the mysteries and secrets and signs and gibberish of Masonry and Odd-^Feilowship must prove as powerless as moonshine upon the snows of December. Restore to the gospel its primitive influence, and to the church of Christ her original love and unity, and there will be no need of these secret societies to alleviate the miseries of mankind, no need of concealing the light under a bushel orbed: on the contrary, the light will siiine

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SO that all can rejoice in it. A public profession of the faith will be a public pledge, known and read of all men, that the obedient believer will consecrate not only his body, soul, and spirit, to the service of his master, but his goods to feed the poor and his labor to him that hath need* Give Christ the honors due to his name, and all the good done to the human race will redound to the glory of that name.

6. ¥/hile our country to the south ond north is being agitated by the doctrines of Abolitionism^ and many minds are bewildered and confused by those doctrines and the incessant harrangues of stump demagogues, I have, in the following work, attempted to settle that question upon its true basis. It was plain to me, that if we are to regard the Negro l\ace as truly and properly human, their enslavement as we see it in the United States, could not be justified upon principles of moral equity. Hooked, then, not only into the condition of the negro tribes, but into their history so far as I could trace it, and into their physical constitution; and the result of my investigations is this, thrit they are not human, or only partly so, a mixture, a mongrel tribe partly beast and partly human, a compound most enormous and revolting! If so, then they not only must be in subjection io^ so long as we find them among us, but they ought to be so. Had God made them at the original creation, he would have made them free: but as he did not make them, as they are a second-creation without his will or concurrence, having neither his image nor the image of the prim-

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itive Man, and a deep grade below the dignity of true humanity, while they dwell in our midst there is but one decree for them, namely, that of perpetual slavery.

7. That the evils of Sectarianism may appear to the better advantage, I have taken special pains to present a portrait of the primitive church, as she stood organized by the authority of the apostles. I have proved her unity, with the necessity of the continuance of that unity through all time. The case is argued from a multitude of Scriptures: — the reader is requested to give special attention to the chapters on this subject. The name of the Church has occupied part of my attention, and the nicknames of modern times are wholly discarded.

Upon the whole, I have endeavored to manage the whole treatise in a way plainly to tell the truth, but at the same time so to speak as to give merited offence to no one. The whole is spread before an indulgent public solely for the benefit of mankind. The above seven items comprehend most thati shall have to saj^ in the following volume; they present a general outline of the field over which the reader is requested to follow me. Nevertheless, many other things will fall incidentally in our way, to which also we will pay the requisite attention in passing along. — As I said before, so let me repeat, I desire above all things to say and do something while I live that may be of utility to my fellow citizens after lam gone. Ever since my mind has been directed to the Bible and the glorious things therein revealed, the world has lost its charms. I feel that I

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care not for the world. My home is in heaven, the better country, the happy land. Reader, I desire you should read the Bible, that you should understand it, that you should obey the Author of it in all he says to you, aud that at last you may reap the reward of the faithful, "the gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Warren County O. > JASON DARROW.

December 11, I8i5. 1

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THE NEW LIGHT.