Blood Atonement and the Origin of Plural Marriage: A Discussion

by Joseph Fielding Smith; R. C. Evans

MORE EVIDENCE CONSIDERED

Right here we will consider the "evidence" you produce to show that "Joseph Smith and the Church during his lifetime condemned polygamy in the strongest terms." The testimony of the thirty-one witnesses you "produce" was against the "secret wife system" of the vile John C. Bennett who was excommunicated for betraying female virtue. This Bennett system had nothing to do with the system of celestial marriage introduced by the Prophet Joseph Smith, and was no more like the Prophet's doctrine than darkness is like daylight. The certificate of these parties that you mention was given in October 1842 (T. & S. 3:939), nearly one year before the revelation on celestial marriage was recorded. At that time the law of marriage in the Church was that adopted in 1835, and was binding on all who had accepted the higher law, and they were few in number.^[5] The best proof that these "witnesses" did not condemn the celestial marriage doctrine of the prophet in this communication, is that out of the thirty-one, at least sixteen have testified that the Prophet introduced that system. One of this number of witnesses became the Prophet's wife, one performed a marriage ceremony in which the Prophet was married to a plural wife, and one other was a witness to such a marriage ceremony. At least six testify that the Prophet taught them the principle of plural marriage and the others, so far as I know, are not on record. That these witnesses were the dupes of Brigham Young cannot truthfully be said, for three of them left the Church and never followed Brigham Young, yet they testify of these things.

The action of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, as recorded in the Times and Seasons (5:3), wherein Hyrum Brown was cut off the Church for preaching polygamy and other false doctrines, was just and timely. The same action would have been taken at any other period of the existence of the Church. Polygamy never was a doctrine of the Church, and the system introduced by the Prophet Joseph Smith was not called by that name in his day. Nor was the system of the Prophet the same as that of Hyrum Brown; and if it had been, the ruling of the Prophet of October 5, 1843, would have cost Brown his standing in the Church, the polygamy of Brown and John C. Bennett was of their own make. In relation to this subject, I will quote from the Life of John Taylor, pages 223-224:

The polygamy and gross sensuality charged by Bennett and repeated by those ministers in France, had no resemblance to celestial or patriarchal marriage which Elder Taylor knew existed at Nauvoo, and which he had obeyed. Hence in denying the false charges of Bennett, he did not deny the existence of that system of marriage that God had revealed; no more than a man would be guilty of denying the legal, genuine currency of the country by denying the genuineness and denouncing what he knew to be a mere counterfeit of it.

Another illustration: Jesus took Peter, James and John into the mountain, and there met with Moses and Elias, and the glory of God shone about them, and these two angels talked with Jesus, and the voice of God was heard proclaiming Him to be the Son of God. After the glorious vision, as Jesus and His companions were descending the mountain, the former said: "Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of Man be risen from the dead." Suppose one of these apostles had turned from the truth before the Son of Man was risen from the dead and under the influence of wicked, lying spirit, should charge that Jesus and some of his favorite apostles went up into a mountain, and there met Moses and Elias,—or some persons pretending to represent them—together with a group of voluptuos courtesans, with whom they spent the day in licentious pleasure. If the other apostles denounced that as an infamous falsehood, would they be untruthful? No; they would not. Or would they be under any obligations when denying the falsehoods of the apostate to break the commandments the Lord had given them by relating just what had happened in the mountain? No; it would have been a breach of the Master's strict commandment for them to do that. So with Elder Taylor. While he was perfectly right and truthful in denying the infamous charges repeated by his oponents, he was under no obligation and had no right to announce to the world, at that time the doctrine of celestial marriage. It was not the law of the Church, or even the law of the Priesthood of the Church; the body thereof at the time knew little or nothing of it, though it had been revealed to the Prophet and made known to some of his most trusted followers. But today, now that the revelation on celestial marriage is published to the world, if the slanderous charges contained in the writings of John C. Bennett should be repeated, every Elder in the Church could truthfully and consistently do just what Elder Taylor did in France—he could deny their existence."