[1]. The quoted part of the statement is what Archdeacon Paley says of the Lord's prayer.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE TESTIMONY OF TOIL AND SUFFERING—EXERTION AND DANGER—A CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT APPLIED.
Archdeacon Paley in his work, "The evidences of Christianity," says: "There is satisfactory evidence that many, pretending to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labors, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undertaken and undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of the truth of those accounts."
The learned archdeacon deducts from this fact a strong argument in support of the truth of Christianity. In order to display his confidence in the strength of his argument, he says: "If the Reformers in the time of Wicliffe, or of Luther; or those of England, in the time of Henry the Eighth, or of Queen Mary; or the founders of our religious sects since, such as were Mr. Whitefield and Mr. Wesley in our times—had undergone the life of toil and exertion, of danger and suffering, which we know that many of them did undergo, for a miraculous story; that is to say, if they had founded their public ministry upon the allegation of miracles wrought within their knowledge, and upon narratives which could not be resolved into delusion or mistake; and if it had appeared that their conduct really had its origin in these accounts, I should have believed them."[[1]]
Mr. Paley's argument is this: The early Christians came to the world with a miraculous story; their public ministry was founded upon the allegation of miracles wrought within their own knowledge, and upon narratives which could not be resolved into delusion or mistake; their conduct really had its origin in these miraculous accounts; and in support of their declarations they endured lives of toil, poverty, persecution, danger and suffering; and for these reasons Mr. Paley concludes that the religion they advocated "must be true." "These men," he says "could not be deceivers. By only not bearing testimony they might have avoided all these sufferings and have lived quietly. Would men in such circumstances pretend to have seen what they never saw; assert facts which they had no knowledge of; go about lying, to teach virtue; and though not only convinced of Christ's being an impostor, but having seen the success of his imposture in his crucifixion, yet persist in carrying it on; and so persist as to bring upon themselves, for nothing, and with a full knowledge of the consequences, enmity and hatred, danger and death?"[[2]]
The world, at least that part of it called Christian, accept as conclusive the argument of the archdeacon; and even unbelievers in the Christian story recognize the force of his reasoning. It is my intention to apply his argument to the new dispensation of the gospel introduced by Joseph Smith; for if the argument tends to prove the divinity of the mission of the ancient apostles of the church, it ought also to prove the divinity of the mission of the apostles of the new dispensation, provided, of course, that the same conditions exist in the latter as in the former case. Those conditions exist in the new dispensation, as in the old, men come to the world with a miraculous story—a story that relates the personal appearing of God the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ; bringing to light the record of an ancient people and translating it by miraculous means into the English language; and the visitation of angels to restore divine authority. The public ministry of Joseph Smith and his associates was founded upon the allegation of these miracles wrought within their own knowledge, and which are of a character, as I have already said, that they can not be resolved into delusion or mistake; their conduct really had its origin in these miraculous accounts; and in support of their declarations they endured lives of toil, poverty, persecution, danger and suffering. The reader has the proof of all these statements in the preceding pages of this work, except in regard to the last, and it is now my purpose to furnish him proof of that.
It has already been stated how the story of the appearance of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith brought upon his youthful head the wrath of the ministers of the locality where he lived; how his own name and that of his parents were loaded with opprobrium for no other reason than because he asserted he had seen a vision.
Persecution and annoyance increased when it was noised abroad that he had the plates from which he translated the Book of Mormon.