Footnotes
[1]. Mal. iv: 5, 6.
[2]. Doc. and Cov. Sec. cx.
[3]. The following passages are largely adapted from the writer's work "Outlines of Ecclesiastical History."
[4]. Eccl. xi.
[5]. The revelation was given in March, 1830; Doc. and Cov. Sec. xix.
[6]. Mark xvi: 16.
[7]. See "Augustine's City of God." Part II.; book xx and xxi.
[8]. Ch. xxxiii.
[9]. I. Peter iii. 18-21.
[10]. Christ's Mission to the Under World (Huidekoper), 4th edition, p. 49. Huidekoper's volume, 185 pages, is a most valuable collection of Christian tradition and teaching on this subject.
[11]. Church of England—Book of Common Prayer, p 311.
[12]. p. 798.
[13]. I. Peter iv: 6.
[14]. I. Cor. xv: 29.
[15]. Heresies xxviii: 7.
[16]. A temple was erected in Kirtland, Ohio, and dedicated in 1836, though at the time little was known of the character of the work to be performed in such kind of structures. A temple site was dedicated at Independence, Missouri; another at Far West in the same state. One was erected at Nauvoo and there the ordinance work for the dead was begun. Since settling in the Rocky Mountains the church has erected four splendid temples, in which up to December, 1893, there have been 683,377 baptisms for the dead; of ordinations to the priesthood, for the dead, 20,232; of endowments, 310,511; of sealings (including wives to husbands and children to parents—three temples reported), 69,749.
[17]. Heb. xi: 39, 40.
[18]. Rom. ii: 6-12. I, Cor. iii: 8. II. Cor. v: 10. Rev. ii. 23. Rev. xx: 12.
[19]. St. John xiv: 1-3.
[20]. An exception must be made in the case of the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics do not believe that all Christians at death go immediately into heaven, but on the contrary "believe that a Christian who dies after the guilt and everlasting punishment of mortal sins have been forgiven him, but who, either from want of opportunity or through his negligence has not discharged the debt of temporal punishment due to his sin, will have to discharge that debt to the justice of God in purgatory." "Purgatory is a state of suffering after this life, in which those souls are for a time detained, which depart this life after their deadly sins have been remitted as to the stain and guilt, and as to the everlasting pain that was due to them; but which souls have on account of those sins still some temporal punishment to pay; as also those souls which leave this world guilty only of venial (that is pardonable) sins. In purgatory these souls are purified and rendered fit to enter into heaven, where nothing defiled enters." The quotations in the above are from "Catholic Belief," by Bruno, D. D., of the Catholic church. As all works of the Catholic church accessible to me have nothing on the different degrees of glory, I conclude that Catholic teaching is that they who attain unto heaven are all equal in glory.
[21]. I. Kings viii: 27.
[22]. II. Cor. xii: 1-4.
[23]. The circumstances under which the revelation was given are these: The Prophet Joseph and Sidney Rigdon were engaged in revising the Jewish scriptures. When they came to St. John, ch. v: 29—speaking of the resurrection of the dead, concerning those that should hear the voice of the Son of Man and come forth, instead of reading as in the text of our common English Bibles—"And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation," the following was given to them by the Spirit: "And shall come forth, they who have done good in the resurrection of the just, and they who have done evil in the resurrection of the unjust." This reading of the passage caused them to marvel, as it was given to them by inspiration; and while they pondered on this thing the Spirit of God enveloped them and they saw the Lord Jesus Christ and those different glories which men will inherit, an account of which is given in the text. The vision is recorded in Doc. and Cov. Sec. lxxvi.
[24]. "Servants of God, but not Gods, nor the Sons of God," remarks Apostle Orson Pratt in his footnote on the passage from which this is condensed. Doc. and Cov. Sec. lxxvi: 112.
[25]. Doc. and Cov. Sec. lxxvi.