AUTHORITY.
In brief manner this subject has been previously alluded to, but a more extended examination is deemed necessary, owing to the importance that attaches to it.
This principle enters largely into every department of man's existence upon the earth. Governments are mainly founded upon it, and authority is fundamentally necessary to establish republics, empires, monarchies and principalities.
The President of the United States must first conform to certain laws and requirements before his acts as President are legal and binding upon the people; so also with all the affairs of the general government. And this is likewise true of the state officials, including the governors, judges, legislators, sheriffs, magistrates, and even the unimportant office of bailiff can only be filled by a man who has fulfilled all the requirements necessary and demanded by the law of the land.
A man who would undertake to fill one of the offices alluded to, without conforming to the law, would be counted an impostor and dealt with as the law directs.
All civilized nations recognize this principle and act accordingly. Even church organizations place great stress upon the necessity that there exists for men to be ordained to their several offices; and a man, before he can legally perform, the marriage ceremony, must first conform to certain rules and laws laid down by the church authority to render the marriage legal. A lay member could not act in the capacity of an elder until authority had been granted him by those who held the power to give authority. Neither could an elder fill the office of a bishop without first conforming to certain rules.
These rules are necessary to the good government of society and the people generally, and without them confusion confounded would reign supreme.
If every man who desired to act as governor was to set up his claims and be allowed to act in that capacity, there would be an end to order. So with all other offices. A few men would sustain one man, as governor, other men would sustain another man, and still other men would sustain their man, until eventually brute force would be the means whereby men would hold their offices.
This principle applies also to admitting men to be citizens of a government. A man who comes from some foreign nation and seeks to become a citizen of the United States must obtain his papers of citizenship and take the oath of allegiance. Not only must he attend to these duties, but he must see that the officer who signs his papers and administers the oath is a duly accredited officer of the government; otherwise his papers are worthless and he is not yet a citizen.
If these things be true as regards man's temporal affairs, how much more true are they when applied to eternal salvation.
Daniel, the young Hebrew prophet, had the visions of futurity opened up to him and saw the time when God would establish a kingdom upon the earth, never more to be thrown down. (Dan. ii., 44; vii., 27).
Many hundreds of years after Daniel's day, Jesus of Nazareth came upon the earth and reiterated the assertion of Daniel, and told His disciples to continue "unceasingly to pray for that kingdom to be set up," and through one of His apostles He revealed how the kingdom was to be established.
John the beloved disciple says: "I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel" [or the laws of the kingdom] "to preach" [or proclaim] "unto them that dwell on the earth" (Rev. xiv., 6).
It would naturally be supposed that the heavenly messenger would be endowed with authority to empower men to admit citizens into the kingdom he came to establish, and that no one could take this authority unto himself, "but he that is called of God as was Aaron;" and that he who might dare to do so, without first being authorized, would render himself liable to the penalty God's law inflicts upon all impostors, usurpers and wolves in sheep's clothing generally.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God," was the command of the Great King, who in the future is to rule over this kingdom. But before the reader can do so he must first find out what it is like; and in this matter we are not left in doubt, for Jesus and His apostles have placed upon record the names of the officers necessary in the kingdom, the necessary laws to govern and control it, the manner of admitting citizens and, in short, all the details, so that the "wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err" in seeking to obey the command, "seek ye first the kingdom of God."
By turning to the writings of Paul (I. Cor. xii., 28), we find that "God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers."
Now if this is the pattern of the officers of the kingdom (church), all we have to do is to start upon our search and examine the various claims that are set up; for there are a multitude of organizations that lay claim to the title of the church or kingdom of God.
It is not necessary to hunt in the midst of the heathen and pagan nations of the earth, for they lay no claim to the title, but will answer you frankly, "We know nothing of your kingdom or its officers." Then let us turn to the Catholic world and examine their claims. We find that they have a pope, cardinals and priests, but no apostles nor prophets, no officers to correspond with the description given by Paul. Next let us view the Protestant denominations. Go back to the earliest reformers, Huss, Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Knox, Henry VIII, and Wesley. Examine all their organizations and we find none of them lay claim to having these officers in their churches, but, on the contrary, ignore and repudiate them by saying, "They are no longer needed."
Examine all denominations, all orders, all faiths, and we find that in this respect they are deficient and lacking, while poor, weak, fallible man sets up his judgment, and by man's wisdom seeks to enter the kingdom of God.
The Christian world acknowledges that it takes legal authority to make a man a citizen of any temporal government set up by man, but when it comes to the government of God, any man who sees proper to do so can set out with a new set of ideas, called a creed, and establish a church, baptize, bless the communion, and go forward in this way, ordaining men to various offices, and yet denying all the time that God has revealed anything, or bestowed any gift of authority.
Are these legal officers of the kingdom of God? Is the reader so far lost in the mazes of tradition as to suppose for one moment that God will recognize officers appointed in any such way, much less their acts?
But lest we do injustice to these different denominations, let us give them one more chance to prove their position correct; for we would gladly avoid seeing the whole Christian world in error and transgression.
Paul, the great apostle, says that God placed in the Church, in addition to its officers, "miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues," and urged upon the people to seek earnestly for these gifts.
Search the world over and find, if you can, an organization, other than that represented by the Latter-Day Saints, that lays claim to and possesses these great blessings.
The Christian world, having changed the order of the Church of God, have lost these gifts, and in endeavoring to justify themselves, say they are no longer needed. Some of them, more honorable than the rest, acknowledge the true state of affairs and confess the lamentable condition they are in.
Mr. Wesley states that the reason the gifts are no longer in the church "is because the love of many waxed cold, and the Christians had turned heathen again, and had only a dead form left" (see Vol. I, Sermon 94).
Smith's Bible Dictionary (page 163) also says: "We must not expect to see the church of holy scriptures actually existing in its perfection on the earth. It is not to be found thus perfect, either in the collected fragments of Christendom, or still less in any of those fragments." The names of sixty-five learned divines and Biblical scholars are on the preface page, as contributors to and endorsers of this book.
Dr. Adam Clark, in his commentaries (page 452) on the 4th chapter of Ephesians, says: "All these officers and the gifts and graces conferred upon them were judged necessary by the Great Head of the church, for its full instruction in the important doctrines of Christianity. The same officers and gifts are still necessary, and God gives them, but they do not know their places."
Roger Williams refused to continue as pastor over the oldest Baptist church in America, on the grounds that there was "no regularly constituted church on earth, nor any person authorized to administer any church ordinance; nor can there be until new apostles are sent by the Great Head of the church, for whose coming I am seeking" (see Picturesque America, page 502).
"Till that great and notable day of the Lord come, we can not, from the prophetic word, anticipate a universal RETURN to the original Gospel, or a general restoration of the kingdom of God, in its primitive form" (Christianity Restored, Alex. Campbell, page 181).
Having brought forward for the consideration of the reader the foregoing points, we now proceed to examine the results that will naturally flow from this terrible situation of affairs; and while we do so, we plead with you, reader, to lay aside prejudice, and, as you value your soul's salvation, seek earnestly to know the truth; "for what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
Having thrown aside the officers of the church, Christianity lost its authority and could no longer administer in the ordinances of the Gospel for the salvation of the souls of the children of men. Instead of the officers and endowments of the kingdom or church of God, man-made doctrines and changeable creeds have been substituted, until to-day the Christian world is "driven and tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine." Weakness, imbecility and lack of authority are written on its every movement; vice, sin and wrong-doing prosper and flourish under the very droppings of the sanctuary.
To-day one theory is taught, tomorrow another. Men have "builded cisterns that will not contain water;" in short, have turned from the apostle at the head of the church, and the prophet in the church of the living God, and heaped to themselves teachers, having itching ears, who have turned the hearts of the people from the truth, and led them astray after fables, until "darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people."
Conflicting creeds and faiths fill the world with a war of words, until the hearts of honest men become sick, sick!—sick of the petty jealousies and miserable trickery of professing Christianity—sending the blood-guilty murderer, with his hands reeking with the blood of his victims, from the gallows to eternal glory and the presence of Deity; while an honest man, because he differs from them in belief, must be consigned to a never ending hell!
Oh consistency! thy name is not modern Christianity!
Without apostles, without prophets, without the gifts, without authority, shorn of all thy pristine beauty and loveliness, all thy grandeur and glorious attributes; torn and divided into a multitude of fragments, continually dividing and sub-dividing, thy talk sounds like that of the scribes of old, "without authority."
And what of thy teachers? "Blind leaders of the blind." Prophecy foretells their doom: Struggling to uphold the columns of the house of Babylon, the dwelling place of "the mother of harlots," and her numerous offspring, they will be crushed in her downfall, unless they speedily repent and turn to the true and living God, be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins, and receive the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, that will "lead them into all truth, and bring to their remembrance things of the past, and show them things to come," for the promise is unto all that "the Lord our God shall call." To members of churches as well as non-members—to the whole world does this proclamation come.
God has set up His Kingdom, or church, upon the earth, never more to be thrown down. His duly appointed and authorized officers are ready to admit men and women as citizens of this kingdom, or church. He or she who hears the sound of this gospel and heeds it not will be under condemnation. He or she who heeds and renders obedience to it will reap life everlasting.
God will not recognize the man-made devices whereby men seek to save themselves by climbing up some other way. He will repudiate the acts of unauthorized men who administer in the ordinances of the gospel; and after once this gospel comes to their ears, if they persist in their course, it will bring condemnation upon their heads. Before they heard it, "they had no sin," in not obeying; now "they have no cloak for their sin," the truth having been taught.
"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of my myself" (John vii., 17).
May the peaceful influence of the Holy Spirit be with those who desire to know the truth, and come unto God, and serve Him with all their "might, mind and strength."
"As we see the infant taken away by death, so may the youth and middle-aged, as well as the infant, be suddenly called into eternity. Let this, then, prove as a warning to all, not to procrastinate repentance, or wait until upon the death-bed, for it is the will of God that man should repent and serve Him in health, and in the strength and power of his mind, in order to secure His blessing, and not wait until he is called to die."
—Joseph Smith.
(Tract No. 2.)
THE PLAN OF SALVATION.
BY ELDER JOHN MORGAN.
In the midst of the Christian world there are very many conflicting theories in relation to man's existence here and hereafter; also as to the duties he owes to himself, his fellowman and to his Creator. It is an undisputed question that some knowledge of
WHERE WE CAME FROM, WHY WE ARE HERE, AND WHERE WE GO AFTER WE LEAVE THIS PROBATION,
is essential to the enjoyment and well-being of the human family.
In the following pages of this tract we shall seek to briefly set forth the belief of the Latter-day Saints on these points. While they may differ widely from the accepted ideas of the Christian world, we may be allowed to mildly suggest that the difference is not so much between those sects of the day and the Latter-day Saints, as it is between those sects and the Bible, a fact for which we are in no sense responsible, and a fact that we can in nowise alter or change, even were we so disposed.
It is deemed proper in the commencement of this investigation to refer to another point so that we may clearly understand each other. It is this: sincerity of belief does not, by any means, establish the correctness of a principle. Testimony of an unimpeachable character can alone do that. Man's belief does not affect a principle in the least. The whole world may believe it, and yet it be untrue; the whole world may refuse to believe it, and yet it be true. The unbelief of the people of Noah's day did not stay the flood; the unbelief of the Jews did not prove Jesus an impostor; and the killing of the apostles did not prove their doctrines false. The assassination of Joseph Smith was no proof one way or another as to the divine nature of his authority; neither will the rejection of the doctrines he taught prove them wrong. If they are true, though he was slain, his followers mobbed, driven and persecuted, yet in the end they will rise triumphant over every obstacle and grow stronger and stronger, as error shall grow weaker and weaker.
In presenting the principles of pre-existence the first principles of the gospel and baptism for the dead, we shall simply quote scripture; and we again state that if there is any difference of opinion, it is between the reader and holy writ.
The Apostle Paul's injunction to the Thessalonians was: "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good" (I Thess. v. 21); and the wise man, Solomon, asserted: "He that judgeth a matter before he heareth it, is not wise."
Let us, then, refer to the word of the Lord, which is the end of argument, and see what the teachings of the Great Creator of all are.
Speaking to Job, one of the most ancient writers of the Bible, He says: "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? * * * When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job xxxviii, 2-7.)
Job certainly must have been somewhere when the "foundations of the earth were laid," or why the question?
There was doubtless more meaning to the words, "When ALL the sons of God shouted for joy," than one at first supposes. The reader asks, "Who were these sons of God?" Luke, in giving the genealogy of the human family, gives the necessary information on this subject: "Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the SON OF GOD" (Luke iii, 38). But let us turn to another text. One of the ancient writers says: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." (Ecc. xii, 7).
Let us ask ourselves how it would be possible to return to a place, point or locality, which we had never visited. How could we return to God unless we had once been in His presence? The logical conclusion is unavoidable, that to enable us to return to Him we must have once enjoyed His associations, which must have been in a pre-existent state, before we became clothed upon with this body of flesh and bone.
Again, we find that the apostles must have had some conception of pre-existence, judging from their question to Jesus: "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John ix, 2.) It will, doubtless, require no argument to convince the reader that the justice of God would scarcely permit the punishment of the individual before the crime was committed. If so, then the sin must have been committed before he came upon the earth, for he was born blind. It was evident that the question was not a doubtful one in the minds of the apostles as to whether a man could sin previous to his existence in the flesh, but as to whether this particular man had sinned or not.
Paul, in his writings to the Hebrews, says: "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" (Heb. xii. 9.) We here gain the information as to who the sons of God were who shouted for joy in the beginning. We also learn the reason why we address Him as, "Our Father which art in heaven," is to distinguish Him from the father of our earthly tabernacles. In other words, He is the Father of the spirits that inhabit our bodies, in precisely the same sense that our earthly fathers are the fathers of our bodies of flesh and bone.
When death ensues, we bury the earthly body, which decomposes and mingles with the elements surrounding its place of deposit; but what of the spirit which "returns unto God who gave it?"
When Jesus appeared to the disciples after His resurrection, "They were affrighted, and supposed they had seen a spirit." But He corrected them, saying, "Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke xxiv. 37-39). From these, words we may gather the information that man, while existing as a spirit, was not clothed upon with flesh and bone, but nevertheless, existed in the exact shape and form that he now possesses. He had eyes to see, ears to hear and many other faculties with which man is here endowed. He was also doubtless in possession of intelligence, and much that goes to ennoble man. He had the ability to pass from place to place, increase in knowledge, and perform certain duties that devolved upon him in that sphere of action.
An unembodied spirit is one that has not yet taken upon itself a body. An embodied spirit is one dwelling in the flesh. A disembodied spirit is one that has passed through this stage of existence and laid its body down in the grave, to be finally taken up and again united, spirit and body, those of the righteous never more to be separated.
The word of the Lord to Jeremiah was: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations" (Jer. i. 5). Here we have the sure word of the Lord relating to one of the children of men who was but a type of the rest, only that in this particular case we have the fact made known that, for good and sufficient reasons, our common Father in the heavens saw proper to ordain one of His children to a certain office prior to sending him down upon the earth. Having so gained the confidence of his Father while in his first or pre-existent state, he was ordained to a high and holy calling, previous to his advent upon the earth, and we learn from holy writ, that this confidence was not misplaced, but that he in honor filled his mission and proved himself true to the trust reposed in him, not veering or turning a hair's breath from the line of his duty, though met by obstacles that would have appalled the stoutest heart.
The reader will please be cautious not to confound the principle of fore-ordination with that of predestination, in the case of Jeremiah, for there is a broad distinction between the two. A man may be fore-ordained, set apart or commanded to do a certain work, yet he retains his agency in the matter, and it is optional with him whether he performs the duty assigned him or not. If predestined to perform a certain work, there would be no choice but to do that work. Not having any choice, he would not incur the responsibility of his own actions, nor control them, but would be controlled by the power which predestined him. While Jeremiah was fore-ordained to be a prophet to the nations, we do not read that he was predestined to fill the office of a prophet by any means.
The principle of pre-existence is plainly illustrated in the life of our Savior, who thus spoke to the people: "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" (John vi. 62.) Again, "And no man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven." To all human appearances, Jesus resembled very much the rest of the children of our common Father. So close was this resemblance, that those by whom He was surrounded failed to see any contrast between Him and any ordinary man. They enquired of each other, "Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren James and Joses, and Simon and Judas?"
Let us ask ourselves the question: Is it so difficult to comprehend our own pre-existence, when that of Jesus is so plainly taught, and also that of many of the Biblical characters of whom we read? Paul, the great apostle, speaking of himself, says, "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." (Titus i. 2.) Here was a promise made to Paul of eternal life, "before the world began," continued upon obedience, as was said to Cain aforetime, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" (Gen. iv, 7.) Yet, notwithstanding this promise, Paul was under the necessity of performing certain duties to enable him to claim the promise made. After being stricken with blindness on the way up to Damascus, and hearing the voice of a risen Redeemer, he was told to "Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do." (Acts ix. 6.) After fasting and prayer, he was visited at the end of three days, by one Ananias, who had been commanded of the Lord, in vision, to visit Paul, and was furthermore told that he was a "chosen vessel," or in other words, one whom the Lord had made promises to, before the "world began," and who had a mission to perform before "Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel." The question of Ananias was, "And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." (Acts xxii. 16.)
We have presented for the consideration of the reader but a few Biblical proofs of man's pre-existence, out of the many that can be selected, yet consider that sufficient has been advanced to show conclusively that the claim of the Latter-day Saints to a belief in this principle, is founded upon holy writ. Their ideas only coincide with the prophets and servants of God in all ages of the world who have alluded to this subject.
Having answered this question: Where did we come from? let us now consider