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The Fundamentals - Volume 4
Mormonism: Its Origin, Characteristics, and Doctrines
by R.G. McNiece, D.D,
for twenty years prior to 1897 Pastor
First Presbyterian Church, Salt Lake City, Utah
[This resource is
excerpted from Chapter X of THE FUNDAMENTALS, VOLUME IV, from the four
volume edition issued by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles in 1917.
This four volume set has been reprinted by Baker Books (ISBN
0-8010-8809-7). THE FUNDAMENTALS was edited by R.A. Torrey, A.C. Dixon,
and others. A copyright does not appear in the 4 volume reprint.]
The
writer (R.G. McNiece) has lived in Salt Lake City, the official
headquarters of Mormonism, for over thirty years, and he has improved
the opportunity to secure a complete understanding of the system. In the
great Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, during a whole generation, he has
heard Mormonism expounded and defended, again and again, by its chief
officials--by President Brigham Young, and President John Taylor, and
their successors, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith.
In various Mormon meeting-houses, also, from Idaho to Arizona, he has
heard the system set forth by many of its chief apostles, bishops, and
elders.
Furthermore, the writer has diligently
studied the chief official books of Mormonism, especially the "Book
of Mormon," the "Doctrine and Covenants," the "Pearl
of Great Price," and, supplementing these, the Mormon Catechism,
Elder Robert's "New Witness for God," Professor Talmage's
"Lectures on the Articles of Faith," the works of Apostle
Orson Pratt, Lucy Smith's "History of the Prophet Joseph," and
the Autobiography of Joseph Smith. And besides he has read a great mass
of pamphlets and articles by Mormon officials. The standpoint of the
writer is that of friendly sympathy and good-will toward the men and
women among the common people in the Mormon ranks, whose sincerity be
has no desire to call in question. But since Mormonism keeps from 1,500
to 2,000 missionaries scattered up and down the country, propagating
this most erroneous and harmful system, organizing Mormon meetings, and
separating families, in the Eastern, Middle, Southern and Northwestern
States, patriotic and Christian people everywhere need to have a clear
idea of what Mormonism really is, and the shameful way in which it
dishonors the Bible and the Christian religion, so that they can help to
protect their own communities from the curse. And it is impossible to
understand its character, without understanding its origin, so let us
consider that first.
THE ORIGIN OF THE
MORMON SYSTEM
1. As an organization,
it is only eighty-two years old, going back to April, 1830. About this
time, or a few months before, the Book of Mormon was published; and on
April 6th, 1830, the Mormon Church was organized with six members , in
Fayette, Seneca County, New York. Notwithstanding the long-continued
effort to surround this origin with great mystery, and various
spectacular fireworks from heaven, as manipulated by Joseph Smith, there
is no mystery about it. The period of eighty-two years is not long
enough to take us back to the region of mystery.
2. The two main sources of
its origin: The first source is a group of three
designing men, who put their profane wits together to palm off on
various communities in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, this crude,
bogus, man-made system under the garb of Christian phraseology, in order
to deceive the unthinking.
People in general think of Joseph Smith
as the one man above all others who originated the Mormon System. But
the facts are solid against such a proposition. Smith was ignorant and
illiterate, hardly able to read until after he was a grown man. He knew
practically nothing about the Bible, according to his mother's
statement, and there is no substantial evidence in his life and conduct
that he ever had any religion in his heart.
A religious man, however erratic he
might be, who had been trained in the Bible and in theology, was needed
to give the bogus system some kind of religious setting. The only man
connected with the scheme from its very beginning, long before the
public organization, who had any such qualifications, was the Rev.
Sidney Rigdon. About 1819, when 26 years of age, he was licensed to
preach as a Baptist minister, and in 1821 became pastor of a small
Baptist church in Pittsburg.
He was an interesting speaker, but very
erratic, and constantly presenting all sorts of wild and startling
theories which unsettled the people. In 1824 he was deposed from the
Baptist denomination because he was unwilling to work in harmony with
its leaders. About two years later, he became a minister of the
Campbellite denomination, and came under the powerful influence of that
strong man, Alexander Campbell, who thoroughly indoctrinated him in all
the doctrines and views peculiar at that time to the denomination. But
Rigdon quarreled with Campbell, and argued if the latter could secure
fame and authority for himself by organizing a new church, then he,
Rigdon, could secure still greater fame and authority by giving to the
world both a new revelation and a new religion, through the Book of
Mormon.
The two unprincipled men who assisted
Rigdon in working out this scheme were Parley P. Pratt, who afterwards
became one of the twelve apostles, and Joseph Smith. Pratt furnished the
mental and moral audacity necessary to propagate such a dishonest
scheme, and Joseph Smith furnished the avaricious cunning, which enabled
him to so commercialize the whole affair that the great bulk of the
financial profit and of the ecclesiastical power fell into his hands. He
occupied a subordinate place only until Rigdon could put the spurious
Book of Mormon into its present shape. But just as soon as the church
was organized, Joseph Smith seized the reins of power, rode rough-shod
over everything and everybody that stood in his way, and did not lay
down the power until his death in June, 1844. The kind of man Pratt was
is illustrated by the fact that he lost his life in 1857 near Fort
Gibson, Arkansas, at the muzzle of a shotgun in the hands of an enraged
husband, whose wife Pratt had induced to desert her home and her
children, and go with him to Utah as one of his plural wives. These
three unprincipled men were the fabricators of the Mormon system.
THE CHARACTERISTICS
OF MORMONISM, WHICH MAKE IT WHAT IT IS
1. It is a
strongly anti-American system. By that is meant that it
flatly contradicts the fundamental principles of our free,
representative government, by insisting that priesthood government in
civil affairs is the only rightful government in this country, or any
country. Apostle Orson Pratt, speaking for the Mormon Church, thus lays
down the law:
"The kingdom of God
[by which he means the Mormon priesthood]
is an order of
government established by Divine authority. . . . All other governments
are illegal and unauthorized . . . . Any people attempting to govern
themselves by laws of their own making, and by officers of their own
appointment, are in direct rebellion against the kingdom of God."
(Orson Pratt's Works, p. 41.)
Nothing is left undone to magnify the
power and authority of the priesthood, and the people are instructed
that to disobey the priesthood is the same as disobeying God. One of the
official books of the church thus sets forth this extravagant and
blasphemous claim: "Men who hold the priesthood possess Divine
authority thus to act for God; and by possessing part of God's power,
they are in reality part of God;. . . and those who reject it, reject
God, even the power of God." ("New Witness for God," p.
187.)
This tyrannical priesthood dictates and
controls all the affairs of the people in the average Mormon community.
2. The Mormon System is
thoroughly anti-Christian. While appropriating to itself
Christian phraseology, and New Testament names and forms, it perverts or
denies every fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion. It not only
denies but ridicules the Christian doctrine of the spirituality of God,
and teaches the people that He is a big man like Brigham Young. For
Mormonism teaches that Adam is the god of this world. It denies that
Christ's atonement has anything to do with our sins, but only with the
sins of Adam. To get rid of our sins, we must work out our salvation
through the teachings, and forms, and ordinances of the Mormon Church,
with its multiplied baptisms for the dead.
3. Mormonism is a deliberate
counterfeit of the Christian religion, intended to deceive the ignorant.
It calls itself, "The Church of Jesus Christ," a name to which
it can lay no claim. The term "Church" is a Christian name and
belongs alone to Christians--to those who are loyal to the Christian
Church, to Jesus Christ as the Divine and only head of the Church, and
to the Bible as the supreme and only revelation from God.
(1) Mormonism tries to palm off on the
world a counterfeit prophet in the person of
Joseph Smith. He had all the marks of a counterfeit or false prophet,
and not one of the marks of a true prophet. In prophetic times, what
were the marks of a true prophet? In the first place, he was a man of
pure and upright life; he was noted for spirituality of mind, so that he
could discern spiritual truth and teach it to others. He was loyal to
God, everywhere and always, and he never made merchandise of his
prophetic office. Joseph Smith was just the very opposite of this.
Instead of living a pure and upright life, he was immoral and wicked, as
we shall presently see. He had no spirituality whatever, and he
constantly made merchandise of his pretended prophetic position, so that
it secured for him houses and lands, and valuable corner-lots and
lucrative offices, such as the office of mayor, municipal magistrate,
municipal judge, lieutenant-general of the Nauvoo Legion, and the
nomination to be president.
The Mormon people have allowed
themselves to be grievously deceived by his Autobiography, written in
1838. He tries to make out that when he was fifteen, he was a pious,
praying youth, greatly concerned about religion, and especially troubled
because there were so many religious sects, he could not tell which one
to join.
Now let us see what Joseph Smith's
immediate neighbors have to say about his character. There is no lack of
evidence. Joseph Smith's father and mother, with the other children,
removed from Vermont to Palmyra, Ontario County, New York, in the summer
of 1815. They were fortune-tellers, dreamers, vision-seers. The father
was a money-digger, and the son Joseph became famous all through that
region as a money-digger. Young Joseph was about eleven years old at
this time, having been born in Sharon, Vermont, Dec. 23, 1805. After two
or three years they moved about three miles south to Manchester where
they lived up to 1830. Take first the testimony of Pomeroy Tucker,
editor of the "Wayne Sentinel," at Palmyra, on whose press the
first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed. Says Mr. Tucker:
"At this period (from 1820 to 1830] in the life and career of
Joseph Smith, Jr., or 'Joe Smith', as he was universally named, and the
Smith family, they were popularly regarded as an illiterate,
whisky-drinking, irreligious race of people; the first named, the chief
subject of this biography, being unanimously voted the laziest and most
worthless of the generation. . . . He could utter the most palpable
exaggeration, or marvelous absurdity, with the utmost apparent
gravity." ("Origin, Rise and Progress of Mormonism," p.
16.)
In 1833 sixty-two residents of Palmyra
made affidavit, over their own signatures, to the following statements:
"We, the undersigned, have been acquainted with the Smith family
for a number of years while they resided near this place, and we have no
hesitation in saying that we consider them destitute of that moral
character which ought to entitle them to the confidence of any
community. . . . Joseph Smith, Sr., and his son Joseph, were, in
particular, considered entirely destitute of moral character and
addicted to vicious habits." There is much more evidence of a
similar character.
(2) Mormonism tries to palm off on the
world a counterfeit Bible, which it calls the
"Book of Mormon" and sets forth as a revelation from God,
putting it on the same level with our own Christian Bible, placing the
two side by side in the Mormon pulpit. Now the Book of Mormon is simply
a poor and weak imitation of our English Bible-a lifeless counterfeit.
Where did the Book of Mormon come from?
Let all that absurd, fictitious yarn of
Joseph Smith, about an angel disclosing to him the box hidden in the
hill of Cumorah, New York, on whose golden plates, in the reformed
Egyptian language, was contained the material out of which he translated
the Book of Mormon--let all that be cut out as having not a particle of
foundation. There was no angel. The only plates Joseph Smith ever dug
out of the hill of Cumorah, or any other hill, were put there by himself
or by one of his agents. While the literature in regard to the
origin of the Book of Mormon is quite voluminous, the real facts about
its origin can be stated in small compass. In 1808-09 the Rev. Solomon
Spaulding settled down as a citizen in the town of Conneaut, in
north-eastern Ohio. He was a man of education, having graduated from
Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire in 1785. He studied theology, and
for a number of years was a minister of one of the Christian
denominations in western New York. He had given up preaching, and had
settled down in Conneaut as a business man, seeking to establish an iron
foundry.
Being fond of Bible literature and
religious romance and archaeology, he became interested in the many
Indian mounds in that region, and especially in their builders. This led
him to plan a religious romance, in which he brought a colony of the
Lost Tribes from Jerusalem into this country, where they developed into
two nations, the Nephites and the Lamanites, a purely imaginary people.
The Book of Mormon, composed of fifteen different books, gives an
account of their wanderings, hardships and battles. The records are
alleged to have been written on plates of brass. These plates begin to
jingle on the second page of the Book of Mormon, and they continue to
jingle until they are finally sealed up and hidden away in the hill of
Cumorah, near Palmyra, in 420 A. D.
Now there are ten, intelligent
witnesses, who stated over their affidavit in 1833, when the subject was
fresh in mind, that about 1811-12, they heard Solomon Spaulding reading
a religious story from the "Manuscript Found," trying to show
that the American Indians are the descendants of the Lost Tribes. They
remembered the quaint phraseology, and the queer names, Lehi, Nephi,
Jarom, Moroni, and the rest. The expression, "and it came to
pass," occurred so often, the boys nick-named Spaulding, "Old
Come-to-Pass." When the Book of Mormon was published these
witnesses identified at once the queer names and phraseology. When
Esquire Wright heard the Book of Mormon read in Conneaut he exclaimed,
"'Old Come-to-Pass' has come to life again." These witnesses
were John Spaulding, brother of Solomon, his wife Martha Spaulding,
Henry Lake, business partner of Solomon Spaulding, John N. Miller, who
worked for Spaulding, Aaron Wright, Oliver Smith, and Naham Howard,
three of Spaulding's neighbors, and Artemas Cunningham, of Geauga
County, who visited Spaulding in October, 1811, to collect a debt.
Spaulding showed him a story he was writing about the lost tribes. Mr.
Cunningham spent half the night listening to the story. When the Book of
Mormon appeared he recognized that in outline it was the same thing that
Spaulding had read to him. The two other witnesses are the widow of
Solomon Spaulding, and Mr. Joseph Miller, of Amity, Pa., where Spaulding
died.
The evidence clearly shows that the
Book of Mormon grew out of Spaulding's story, but the defenders of
Mormonism lose their mental balance whenever this subject is mentioned,
and they treat it dishonestly. They say: "We have the
Spaulding manuscript in the Oberlin College Library, brought back from
Honolulu in 1884 by President Fairchild, and there is no connection
between it and the Book of Mormon." Certainly not. No person well
informed about the history of Mormonism ever claimed that there is any
connection. But why say, "We have the Spaulding
Manuscript"? All that the facts warrant is, "There is a
Spaulding manuscript in Oberlin," and the possession of that
manuscript will afford no help to the defenders of Mormonism against the
plagiarism of the book until they do one thing which they are unable to
do; namely, establish a general negative, and show that this manuscript
in Oberlin College Library is the only manuscript which Solomon
Spaulding ever wrote. This can not be done, for there is conclusive
evidence that he wrote three or four manuscripts , and one of them was
the "Manuscript Found," which he read to his neighbors, and
which formed the basis of the Book of Mormon. So when the champions of
Mormonism say: "The Book of Mormon could not have grown out of the
Spaulding manuscript, for that manuscript is in Oberlin, and there is no
connection between it and the Book of Mormon," they take a
dishonest position by falsely assuming that this is the only manuscript
Spaulding wrote, whereas there is positive evidence that he wrote
several manuscripts. The fact, therefore, is established by abundant
evidence that the Book of Mormon is a plagiarism from Spaulding's
religious romance.
Just when Rigdon, Pratt, and Smith first
met and concocted the dishonest scheme of the buried plates is not
altogether clear, probably about 1827. A strenuous attempt has been made
to show that Rigdon and Pratt had no knowledge of the Book of Mormon
until its publication, and they go through the wretched farce of
pretending to be converted to Mormonism after the Book of Mormon had
been published, which they say they knew nothing about before, although
evidence shows that they both had been in the scheme to publish it since
1827. What a set of deceivers!
The one important fact is the plagiarism
of the Book of Mormon from the Spaulding romance, entitled
"Manuscript Found." It is not specially important to know who
edited the Spaulding story, and developed it into the present Book of
Mormon. But all the evidence points to Sidney Rigdon, and it points
to no one else. The evidence shows the following things: That a copy
of the Spaulding manuscript was in the printing office of Patterson and
Lambdin, in Pittsburg, for a good while after 1814; that Rigdon and
Lambdin were on intimate terms from 1818 to the death of Lambdin in
August, 1825; that more than two years before the publication of the
Book of Mormon, Rigdon had spoken to several of his friends about the
coming publication of a book from golden plates, which would produce a
great religious revolution. During these two years Rigdon was preaching
wild and startling doctrines, afterwards found in the Book of Mormon.
Any one familiar with the peculiar
Campbellite doctrines of that time can not read far into the Book of
Mormon without discovering that the author had been a Campbellite. His
"speech bewrayeth" him in the employment of phraseology to
which lie had become accustomed while associated with the brethren of
that denomination. Furthermore, the book is full of Rigdon's own
peculiar views. He deserves credit, however, for making the Book of
Mormon condemn polygamy, and for condemning it himself, which brought
him into sharp conflict with both Joseph Smith and his successor,
Brigham Young.
(3) Mormonism imposes upon the people a counterfeit
priesthood, which it calls the "Melchisedek and
Aaronic priesthood," although there never was any Melchisedek order
of priesthood. There was one man by that name, both a king and a priest,
without predecessor or successor, and so chosen as a type of the
priesthood of the Son of God. The Aaronic priesthood descended from
father to son, in a marvelous way, for forty-five generations, until all
priesthood was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Since the one perfect
sacrifice of Himself made by our great High Priest, Jesus Christ, any
person who pretends to be a priest and claims the right to stand between
us and God, is what our Saviour calls "a thief and a robber."
What a bogus priesthood this pretended Mormon priesthood is! It has no
more right to administer the Christian ordinances of baptism and the
Lord's Supper, than any other group of unprincipled men who repudiate
Jesus Christ as the Divine Head of the Church, and go through the
blasphemous farce of electing themselves members of "the holy
priesthood." And yet Mormons tremble at the dictates of this bogus
priesthood, and fear to exercise the freedom of opinion which is their
right. The 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Chapters of Hebrews give us Divine
instruction as to the fact that all priesthood was forever fulfilled,
and came to an end in Jesus Christ.
4. Mormonism imposes upon the
people a counterfeit group of apostles.
It requires four things to make a true apostle:
- First, He must have
been acquainted with Jesus Christ before His crucifixion.
- Second, He must have
seen Christ after His resurrection from the dead.
- Third, He must have
received his commission as an apostle directly from Christ, as
Divine Head of the Church.
- Fourth, He must be
able to work miracles to show that God sent him.
So that any group of men now
who say they are apostles, are simply willful deceivers, and the truth
is not in them.
THE DOCTRINES OF
THE MORMON SYSTEM
All that has been said under the
preceding division about the characteristics of Mormonism, has been a
setting forth of its false and anti-Scriptural teachings on the four
important subjects of prophecy, revelation, Divine authority of the
bogus priesthood, and the bogus apostles. The Mormon Church does not
publish its peculiar teachings and beliefs. If it did, it would gain no
more converts; it waits until its converts are thoroughly entrapped
before its peculiar doctrines are disclosed. Its whole system is carried
on, so far as new converts are concerned, by means of the most
systematic deception. Its missionaries wear black frock coats and white
cravats so that the people are deceived into supposing that they are
Christian ministers.
In the Spring of 1844., when the Mormon
Church was being severely condemned all over the country, John
Wentworth, who was publishing a paper in Chicago, asked Joseph Smith to
state what the Mormons believe. Smith and some of his associates put
their heads together, and sent out thirteen articles as a summary of
Mormon belief. It is simply another piece of deception, for these
articles do not contain one doctrine peculiar to Mormonism, but are
rather a summary of doctrines held by the Christian denominations. And
yet they stand today as representing Mormon belief. When we come to test
these articles by the official books of Mormonism, we find they are
thoroughly deceiving. Let us take up the first six or seven of these
pretended articles of belief, and see how misleading they are.
"ARTICLE 1. WE
BELIEVE IN GOD THE ETERNAL FATHER, AND IN HIS SON JESUS CHRIST, AND IN
THE HOLY GHOST."
1. By God the eternal Father, the Mormon
officials mean Adam. (For convenience we will use the following
abbreviations: B. of M. for Book of Mormon; D. & C. for Doctrine and
Covenants; P. G. P. for Pearl of Great Price; Comp. for Compendium of
Mormon Doctrine; Key, for Pratt's Key to Theol.; J. of D. for journal of
Discourses-volumes of Mormon Sermons; and M. C. for Mormon Catechism.)
Brigham Young taught that Adam was promoted to be the god of this world:
"He (Adam) is out Father and our God, and the only God with whom we
have to do." (J. of D., Vol. 1, p. 50.)
2. This Adam-god is a polygamist.
"When our Father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it
with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with
him." (Brigham Young, J. of D., 1, 50.)
3. The Mormon officials teach that those
who build up large polygamous establishments on earth, will be promoted
to be gods in the heavenly world, and will rule over kingdoms. Take this
heathen teaching of Joseph Smith: "God Himself was once as we are
now, and is an exalted Man [in other words, simply a big Mormon]. And
you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, the same as all gods
have done before you." (J. of D., VI, 4; Comp. 283.)
4. It will be seen that Mormonism
believes in many gods. "Are there more gods than one? Yes,
many." (Catechism.)
5. These gods continue to have children
forever. "Each god, through his wife or wives. raises up a numerous
family of sons and daughters, for each father and mother will be in a
condition to multiply forever and ever." (The Seer, 1, 37.) This is
directly contrary to our Saviour's teaching in.Mark 12:25: "For
when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in
marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven."
It seems incredible that such
dishonoring heathenish views of God, the Almighty Creator and Governor
of the world should be held and propagated in Christian America, by an
organization calling itself "The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints." Paul's statement in Rom. 1:21-24 seems verified
in them.
6. They teach that the Holy Spirit is a
kind of ethereal substance diffused through space. "The purest,
most refined and subtler of all these substances (such as electricity,
galvanism, magnetism). . . is that substance called the Holy
Spirit." (Key, P. 39.)
How refreshing to turn to the Divine
Word and read its convincing and authoritative teachings about God. We
read in Gen. 1:1: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth"; in Deut. 6:4: "Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our God is one
Lord"; in Psa. 104:1: "O Lord my God, Thou art very great;
Thou art clothed with honor and majesty"; in Isa. 45:5: "I am
the Lord, and there is none else"; in John 4:24: "God is a
Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth"; in John 14:26: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy
Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all
things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said
unto you." The Holy Spirit, then, is a Divine Person, and not an
"ethereal substance."
"ARTICLE 2. WE
BELIEVE THAT MEN WILL BE PUNISHED FOR THEIR OWN SINS, AND NOT FOR ADAM'S
TRANSGRESSIONS."
But that is very different from holding
that Adam did not transgress the law of God. Here is the teaching of the
Mormon Catechism: "Was it necessary that Adam should partake of the
forbidden fruit? Yes, unless he had done so, he would not have known
good and evil here, neither could he have had mortal posterity."
"Is it proper for us to consider
the transgression of Adam and Eve as a grievous calamity, and that all
mankind would have been infinitely more happy if the Fall had not
occurred? No, but we ought to consider the Fall of our first parents as
one of the great steps to eternal exaltation and happiness."
(Catechism, Chapter 8.) What saith the Scriptures: "If we say that
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"
(I John 1:8). "Wherefore as by one man [Adam] sin entered into the
world, and death by gin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all
have sinned" (Rom. 5:12). "For the wages of sin is death; but
the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
"ARTICLE 3. WE
BELIEVE THAT THROUGH THE ATONEMENT OF JESUS CHRIST ALL MANKIND MAY BE
SAVED, BY OBEDIENCE TO THE LAWS AND ORDINANCES OF THE GOSPEL."
1. That is, the bogus Mormon Gospel.
According to the official teachings of Mormonism, who was Jesus Christ?
The son of Adam-god and Mary. "The Father has begotten him in his
own likeness. He was not begotten of the Holy Ghost. And who is the
Father? He is the first of the human family." (Brigham Young, J. of
D., 1, 50.)
2. Christ is represented as having
plural wives. "We say it was Jesus Christ who was married (at Cana
to the Marys and Martha), whereby He could see His seed before He was
crucified" (Apostle 0. Hyde, Sermon).
"The atonement made by Jesus Christ
brought about the resurrection from the dead, and restored life."
(B. of M. Alma, 42:23.) "Redemption from personal sins can only be
obtained through obedience to the requirements of the Gospel [Mormon
ceremonies] and a life of good works.
"Will all the people be damned who
are not Latter-Day Saints? Yes, and a great many of them except they
repent speedily." (Brigham Young, J. of D., 1, 339.) Our Saviour
said: "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the
world, but that through Him the world might be saved."
"ARTICLE 4. WE
BELIEVE THAT THE FIRST PRINCIPLES AND ORDINANCES OF THE BIBLE ARE:
First, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; Second Repentance; Third, Baptism
by Immersion for the Remission of Sins; Fourth, Laying on of Hands for
the Gift of the Holy Ghost."
1. "The sectarian doctrine of
justification by faith alone has exercised an influence for evil since
the early days of Christianity." (Talmage's Articles of Faith, p.
120.) Paul says: "For ye are all the children of God by faith in
Jesus Christ" (Gal. 3:26).
2. How to obtain the Holy Spirit:
"There is a set mode by which this great gift (the Holy Spirit) is
conferred upon mankind . . . the laying on of hands by men who have
themselves received it, and have been called of God and ordained to
administer it." (That means the Mormon priesthood.) Our Saviour
said: "How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to them who ask Him." The Holy Spirit, our Saviour teaches,
is given in answer to prayer, and is not dependent on the priesthood of
the Mormon Church, or any other church.
ARTICLE 5. WE
BELIEVE THAT A MAN MUST BE CALLED OF GOD BY PROPHECY, AND BY THE LAYING
ON OF HANDS, BY THOSE WHO ARE IN AUTHORITY, TO PREACH THE GOSPEL AND
ADMINISTER IN THE ORDINANCES THEREOF."
According to Mormonism, the only persons
who have any right to administer the ordinances of Baptism and the
Lord's Supper are the representatives of the Mormon priesthood. It
unchurches all the Christian denominations, and impudently claims that
the ,Mormon Church is the only true church; whereas it is not a church
at all in the New Testament sense, and has no more authority than Dowie
had, or Mrs. Eddy. Its priesthood is bogus in its origin and its
authority. They are what our Saviour calls "thieves and
robbers."
Paul says in Eph. 4:11, 12: "And He
[Christ] gave some apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists;
and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."
"ARTICLE 6. WE
BELIEVE IN THE SAME ORGANIZATION THAT EXISTED IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH;
NAMELY, APOSTLES, PROPHETS, PASTORS, TEACHERS, EVANGELISTS, ETC."
We have shown that it is impossible for
men to be true apostles now. Nor is there any warrant in the New
Testament for such bogus officials as the "First Presidency of the
Church," with its two Counsellors, or for the "High
Council," with its despotic methods.
The Mormon Church pronounces damnation
upon Christian believers who receive baptism from the hands of Christian
ministers. "Any person who shall be so wicked as to receive a holy
ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of these apostate [Christian]
churches, will be sent down to hell with them unless he repents of the
unholy and impious act." (The Seer, Vols. 1 & 2, p. 255.) Our
Saviour said to His disciples, and to all who should become His
disciples to the end of time, in Matt. 28:19: "Go ye therefore and
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
"ARTICLE 7. WE
BELIEVE IN THE GIFT OF TONGUES, PROPHECY, VISIONS, HEALING,
INTERPRETATION OF TONGUES."
"ARTICLE 8. WE
BELIEVE THE BIBLE TO BE THE WORD OF GOD, SO FAR AS IT IS CORRECTLY
TRANSLATED,' WE ALSO BELIEVE THE B00K OF MORMON TO BE THE WORD OF
GOD."
1. The priesthood can make additional
Scriptures: "Wilford Woodruff is a prophet, . . . and he can make
Scriptures as good as those in the Bible." (Apostle J. W. Taylor,
Conference, Salt Lake, April 5, '97.) "The living oracles
[pretended priestly revelations] are worth more to the Latter-Day Saints
than all the Bibles." (Apostle M. W. Merrill , Conference, Salt
Lake, Oct., '97.)
2. Paul tells us, on the other hand, in
2 Tim. 3:16, that all genuine Scripture "is given by inspiration of
God."
The disgusting doctrine of plural
marriage is omitted from these Articles of Faith. But it still stands in
the Book of Doctrine and Covenants as a revelation from God to be
observed under pain of eternal damnation. Yet as Mrs. Orson Pratt said:
"This pretended revelation was simply a dishonest trick on the part
of Joseph Smith to cloak over his own wicked and immoral life, and to
keep the peace in his household." It will be seen that the Mormon
people are required to accept the pretended revelation sanctioning
plural marriage, on pain of eternal damnation, from the following
quotation from this bogus revelation which still stands in their
official book:
"For behold I reveal unto you a new
and an everlasting covenant; and if you abide not that covenant then are
you damned: for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to
enter into My glory. . . . And again, as pertaining to the law of the
Priesthood, if any man espouse a virgin and desire to espouse another,
and the first give her consent.; and if he espouse the second and they
are virgins and have vowed to no other man, then he is justified; for he
cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to none
else; and if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot
commit adultery, for they belong unto him; and they are given unto him;
therefore is he justified." ("Doctrine and Covenants,"
chap. 132.)
Now, what is this but a depraved and
cunning bribe to every kind of social immorality? And that has been its
direct result for two generations, with the iniquity still going on.
It is difficult for any one to study
this Mormon system as a whole, without coming to the conclusion that
there is something in it beyond the power of man, something positively
Satanic. And does it not seem to be a reproach on the Christian churches
of this country that, after eighty years, such a system of downright
heathenism should still hold the people of one of the great states of
the West in absolute bondage, and through its hierarchical power, by
means of colonization, be able to influence the election of senators and
representatives in Congress from five other states? This latter fact
makes it a national and not a local problem. The one important thing to
be done is to double the Christian missionary forces in Utah, in order
to bring deliverance to those who are in bondage.
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