Footnotes
[1]. Ether vi: 27. Ibid. ix: 15-22. Ibid. x: 10 et. seq.
[2]. Ether ix: 14, 15, 21, 22. Ibid. x: 13.
[3]. Mosiah xxix: 21-23. See also remarks, chapters x, and xiii.
[4]. Perhaps it may be thought that an exception should be made in the matter of Lamanite kingdoms, of which I have spoken (chapter xiii) as constituting at one period of Lamanite history, a sort of confederacy of kingdoms; but this does not affect the statement of the text which is dealing with the form of government. I believe myself justified in saying that whether reference is made to the petty Lamanite kingdoms or the central kingdom to which they were tributary, the principle in government will be found the same—the king is the source of all political power, the monarchy is "simple," the kingly power absolute.
[5]. Doc. & Cov., Sec. ci: 76-80.
[6]. Letters of Joseph Smith, from Liberty Prison, under date of March 25, 1839—to the Church of the Latter-day Saints. History of the Church, Vol. III., p. 304.
[7]. See De Tocqueville's Constitution of the U. S., Vol. I.
[8]. See Chapter xiii.
[9]. Ante pp. 216-7.
[10]. See Ante Chapter xxxvii.
[11]. Book of Mosiah, p. 181 (current edition).
[12]. Book of Mormon, p 283 (current edition).
CHAPTER XXXIX
INTERNAL EVIDENCES—THE ORIGINALITY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON AN EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF ITS CLAIMS.
How far originality may be insisted upon as a necessary element in a book avowedly containing a revelation from God is an open question; just as how far originality in a prophet may be insisted upon is. In both cases, however, it cannot be doubted but that originality would be regarded as evidence of considerable weight in favor of the divinity of the message of either prophet or book. Somehow men look for originality in any thing that purports to be a revelation from God, come how it will. They look for a word "from the inner fact of things" in a revelation. A new word that shall add somewhat to the sum of known things, and spoken in a way to attract anew the attention of men. And yet it must not be forgotten that "every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven * * * bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old"[[1]]—the old, mark you, as well as the new—and one of olden time doubted even if there really was any new thing under the sun. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, see, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us."[[2]]
From all which I conclude that while in a way originality may be regarded as affording some evidence in favor of the claims of a prophet and his message, or of a book and its revelation, still originality is not an indispensable quality in either prophet or book. Contemporary prophets, or prophets living in succession, may come burdened with the same word of the Lord, with the same divine message; but the one who speaks secondly or thirdly, and hence with all claim to originality gone, is none the less God's messenger; and the word he speaks may not with safety be rejected for that it lacks the quality of originality. So, too, with books. It would be a senseless manner of handling the scriptures to reject the books called first and second Chronicles because they chiefly duplicate the matter of the books called first and second Kings, and have little originality to commend them to our acceptance. So with the books of the New Testament. Accepting for our purpose here the order in which they stand in the commonly received versions of the New Testament, as the order in which the books were written, shall the book of Mark be rejected because in the main it deals with the same matter that engages the attention of Matthew, and there is but little on the score of its originality of matter to commend it as an inspired book? The same question could be asked in relation to the book of Luke. The truth is that God in books as in prophets sometimes requires more than one for a witness to his message, and hence repeats the revelation in a number of inspired books, in which case the books merely repeating the revelation are as truly inspired, as truly scripture as the one in which the message first appeared, although it could be said that the quality of originality is wholly wanting.
Since the Book of Mormon feigns the introduction of no new religion, but gives merely an account of the introduction of the Christian religion in the western hemisphere, by inspired teachers, both before and after the coming of Messiah, and by the personal ministry of Messiah after his resurrection; and as the Christian religion is always the same, in all times and in all lands, it must have been the same when introduced into America as when taught in Judea—where is room for originality? Is not originality by the very nature of the claims of the Book of Mormon excluded? The reader, I believe, will recognize the force of the question; and I take occasion here to remark that the point in the question exhibits the weakness of those objections that are sometimes urged against the Book of Mormon on the score of sameness of matter in it and the New Testament; and also it exhibits how senseless is the clamor for the existence of some new moral or religious truth[[3]] in the Book of Mormon, not to be found in the Old or New Testaments.
Since, then, the Book of Mormon, so far as it treats of religion, treats of the Christian religion, it is comparison not contrast that should be made; sameness, not difference that should be looked for; identity of moral and religious truths, not differences; accordance with old truths, rather than the existence of new ones. The Christian religion may not be contrasted with itself; and as the fullness of the gospel was revealed in the proclamation of it in Judea, it would be sufficient if a dispensation of the same gospel proclaimed in America is in strict accordance with that taught in Judea. In fact this is all that the nature of the case strictly requires. Still, after the reasonableness of all this is established, there may be claimed for the Book of Mormon an originality in the fact of the existence of new and important Christian truths in its pages; as, also an originality of emphasis placed on certain other Christian truths.
This much that a proper estimate may be formed of the value of originality as an evidence of the divine authenticity or inspiration of a book; neither giving an exaggerated value to it on the one hand, nor accounting it of little or no importance on the other.
I.
Originality of Structure.
In enumerating the several particulars in which the Book of Mormon manifests originality, I would name its peculiar structure—so at variance with all modern ideas of book making—pointed out in the treatment of the last subdivision of chapter xxxviii, and ask the reader to consider that treatise brought over into this subdivision, and the peculiar structure of the Book of Mormon made one, and the first, of the evidences of its originality.
II.
Originality in Names.
So also as to names; so far as they are original, I would have that fact considered as another, the second, evidence of the originality of the Book of Mormon; and so much of that treatise as deals with the originality of the names, (see chapter xxxvii) considered as brought over into this subdivision.