CONCLUSION.
The author having now finished his design, in laying before the public as complete a system, as he was able to collect and lay together, for the prevention of adultery, and of the public prostitution of women—which said system is founded solely on the basis of the divine law—he desires to conclude the whole, with some very essential parts of his creed relative to the subjects herein treated.
He does most solemnly believe—that the moral laws and precepts contained in the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, were designed for the moral government of God's people in all ages of the world.
That all the statutes therein, relative to marriage, and all that concerns it, as to it's nature and essence, are the fixed and immutable determinations of Infinite Wisdom.
That no power on earth can lawfully add to, or diminish from them, a single jot or tittle.
That all variations, and departures from them, are so many insults against the power, wisdom, holiness, and purity of the Divine Lawgiver.
That all human contrivances to evade their force, and to destroy their influence and obligation—which were begun by primitive Christians and fathers—carried on and completed by Christian churchmen, whether Popish or Protestant—are so many instances of human corruption and depravity, which cannot admit of much greater aggravation, than having appeared in the world under the specious garb of piety and sanctity, while they are ruining the bodies and souls of mankind—but more especially of the female sex—and setting the laws, made by the God of nature, for their security and protection, at open defiance.
That all these positions are proved in the foregoing volumes, and abundantly confirmed by every day's experience.
That, as far as the divine law is adopted into our municipal system, so far will the ruinous and destructive crimes of adultery and prostitution of women be checked—but by no other means which ever has, or can be, invented.
That we are all more the creatures of custom than we are aware of—that the human mind, having no innate ideas of right and wrong, because it has none of that law which constitutes them, takes up with the first that offer themselves to its observation; these grow up with it, and form themselves into those various modes of opinion, which divide one part of mankind from another in their sentiments and judgments of things; these are improved into habits by education and usage, and hence arise the opposition and difficulty which truth meets with, when it presents itself, on its own simple authority, to the mind of man, and would supplant those prejudices which are found to have usurped its place and influence within the soul.
That the Hebrew tongue, in which the divine law is revealed and recorded, has one fixed and determinate meaning, with regard to the things therein contained; and, that not a single word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, verse, or chapter, has any other meaning now, than when first written by the sacred pen-men—that every part of the creation, whether animate or inanimate, is just what it is there described, and that all the moral actions of men are good or evil, only as they are conformable, or not, to the true intent and meaning of the unchangeable laws of the Creator there recorded.—Therefore,
To imagine that the sun which rules our day, and the moon which governs our night, are not the same identical luminaries of which we read in the Hebrew scriptures, is not more false, absurd, and unwarranted, than to say that marriage, under all the forms in which it existed under the dispensation of God, as revealed in the Hebrew scriptures, and there recorded, is not now one and the same in God's sight. And we are no more authorized to suppose, that it is in the power of man to create a new sun or moon, than we are, that he can make marriage, as in God's sight, any thing else than what God Himself hath made it in His most holy law.—To assert that there is any law, holier, purer, wiser, or better adapted to regulate the commerce of the sexes, than that which Jehovah published at Mount Sinai, is horrible blasphemy!
The author doth most certainly believe, that as the sacraments of the Lord's Supper and Baptism have been corrupted by anti-christian inventions—so the ordinance of marriage, as appointed by God, and regulated by His laws, hath shared the same fate—and that nothing can restore any of these to their primitive simplicity, but an unreserved submission of the minds of men to the pure and perfect word of God.
He doth also believe, that if ever the increasing ruin and desolation of the sex, the lower orders thereof especially, should be deemed, as it ought, a serious object of parliamentary consideration, as a national evil of the most desolating and destructive kind, not only to individuals, but to the public in general—if ever the legislature should think, with Baron Montesquieu, that—"in a popular state, public incontinence may be regarded as the greatest of misfortunes"—if ever they wish to discourage and check adultery, whoredom, and celibacy, which are the causes of depopulation, and of other numberless evils; and to promote the interests of chastity and marriage, which are the approximate causes of population, and of other numberless benefits—no plan that ever can be devised or thought of will ever answer these most desirable ends, like that exhibited to us in the divine law; which has been considered and set forth in these volumes, and which, however antiquated and laid aside by the craft and policy of Popish contrivance, to answer the purposes of priestly importance, ambition and wealth, is yet, as it was, and ever will be, the only rule of right—millions have had cause to curse the day when it was laid aside—millions would have reason to bless the day when it shall be restored.
As for the experiments which have been try'd, to improve upon the dispensations of the Most High, with respect to the moral government of mankind, they certainly have precedents of a very early date. They began with our first parents, and have been handed down to us in regular succession for near six thousand years. The Jewish church was very fertile in such experiments, as its history, both in the Old Testament and New Testament, abundantly informs us. As for the Christians, they have not been behind hand; they have always had projectors, of very high and distinguished abilities in that way—their projects and experiments, with respect to God's laws which were to regulate the commerce of the sexes, have been set forth without reserve in these volumes, but more especially in the first chapter of this—and what has been the consequence?—We have almost lost sight of that simple, plain, and salutary Plan, held forth to us in the divine law—and are now under a complicated, dark, and destructive System, which, instead of resembling the plain and evident way of duty pointed out to us in the statutes of Heaven, rather may remind us of Virgil's account of the Cretan labyrinth, where the devouring monster Minotaur was kept—
Ut quondam Cretâ fertur labyrinthus in altâ,
Parietibus tectum cæcis iter, ancipitemque
Mille viis habuisse dolum; qua signa sequendi
Falleret indeprensus et irremeabilis error.
Æn. v. 588.
Like as the Cretan labyrinth of old,
With wandering wave, and many a winding fold,
Involv'd the weary feet without redress,
In a round error which deny'd recess.
Dryden.
Fable tells us, that Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, gave Theseus a clew, by which he found his way out of the labyrinth, after having slain the Minotaur.
If these volumes should be made instrumental to our deliverance, by unravelling the iniquitous mystery of human systems respecting marriage, and by checking the devastations of those worst and most destructive of monsters —adultery and female prostitution—their end will be answered.
SOLI DEO GLORIA.
References:
Uncharted Knowledge
Wisdom From Previous Realities
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