Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)

by B. H. Roberts

Meantime we should recognize the fact that we do many things of our own uninspired intelligence for the issues of which we ourselves are responsible.

Moreover, we ourselves should seek to do good things; for the power is in us to do good, if we will but set about it, even as the Lord has indicated in this revelation I have read on that subject. Many of our actions—shall I say nearly all our ordinary actions?—are prompted by this native intelligence. We take account of this and of that, and from the data before us we make up our judgment and act upon the probabilities involved. That is the ordinary work-a-day guide by which we walk. Then, of course, for the performance of extraordinary duties, for the accomplishment of high purposes, the soul, conscious of its own limitations, reaches out for help; deep calls to deep; the infinite in man seeks union with the infinite in God, and, on occasion, and when necessary for the achievement of God's purposes, we have reason to believe that the Lord deigns to communicate his mind and will unto men. But the Lord evidently proposes that man shall act here largely upon his own intelligence, exercise his own agency, and develop the powers, intelligent and moral, that are within him. That is why men are here in this earth-probation. While I believe the Lord will help men at need, I think it improper to assign every word and every act of theirs to an inspiration from the Lord; for if that were true, we would have to acknowledge ourselves as being wholly taken possession of by the Lord, and not permitted to go to the right or to the left, but as he guided us. Needless to say that in that event there would be no error in judgment, no blunders made. Where would human agency or human intelligence exist in the one case or be developed in the other under such circumstances? They would not exist. Hence I think it a reasonable conclusion to say that constant, never-varying inspiration is not a factor in the administration of the affairs even of the Church; not even good men, no, not though they be prophets or other high officials of the Church, are at all times and in all things inspired of God. It is only occasionally and at need that God comes to their aid.

Upon this subject I want to read what I think was a very wise admission once made by Hyrum Smith, brother of the Prophet, and father of President Joseph F. Smith. After the Prophet Joseph was compelled to flee from his enemies in Kirtland, Ohio, to Far West, Missouri, the word of the Lord was given to the effect that the honest in heart in Kirtland should gather at Far West; whereupon a number of expedients were suggested, or means by which the Saints should make the journey. The High Council and Brother Hyrum Smith conceived the plan of moving the Saints by the water course, by the Ohio, the Missouri and Grand rivers, since those streams were navigable; but the plan proposed by them failed. Then the Seventies took up the matter—the First Council of Seventies—and their proposition was to organize a company that should go overland to Missouri, by team and on foot. They developed their plans, and Hyrum Smith in the course of some remarks made at one of their meetings, is represented as having said that:

"What he had done in reference to chartering a steamboat for the purpose of removing the Church as a body, he had done according to his own judgment, without reference to the testimony of the Spirit of God; that he had recommended that course and had advised the High Council and High Priests to adopt that measure, acting solely upon his own wisdom; for it has seemed to him that the whole body of the Church in Kirtland could be removed with less expense in the way he had proposed than in any other. He said further that the Saints had to act oftentimes upon their own responsibility, without any reference to the testimony of the Spirit of God, in relation to temporal affairs; that he had so acted that the plan of going by water was approved by him, and that the failure of the scheme was evidence in his mind that God did not approve of it." (The foregoing is from the minutes of the said meeting.)

I think this utterance of the Patriarch-Prophet of the Church gives voice to the common sense view of inspiration, its operations upon me, and affairs of the Church. It is vain for men to claim divine inspiration for every move that is made in Church affairs. God makes no mistakes. He never errs in judgment. Whatever he does is done in perfect wisdom, and the final result either of a single act or a series of acts is always his vindication. So that whatsoever of unwisdom appears in the policy of his Church; whatsoever of defect appears in the administration of her affairs, are not assignable to God, nor are they the result of the operation of his inspiration upon the minds of men. Such unwisdom in policy, such defects in administration are referable alone to men, whose knowledge is limited, whose foresight, when unhelped by divine inspiration, is imperfect, whose wisdom when backed by no other intelligence than that native to their own spirits is halting, and whose judgment is burdened with many a defect. Men are responsible for such blundering as may take place in the management of this divine institution we call the Church of Christ.

That there have been unwise things done in the Church by good men, men susceptible at times to the inspiration of the Spirit of God, we may not question. Many instances in the history of the Church through three quarters of a century prove it, and it would be a solecism to say that God was the author of those unwise, not to say positively foolish, things that have been done. For these things men must stand responsible, not God.

It is well nigh as dangerous to claim too much for the inspiration of God in the affairs of men as it is to claim too little. By the first men are led into superstition, and into blasphemously accrediting their own imperfect actions, their blunders, and possibly even their sins to God; and by the second they are apt to altogether eliminate the influence of God from human affairs; I pause in doubt as to which extreme would be the worse.

After these remarks I can hear some in their hearts ask, "How, then, shall we attain to certainty? How are we to know when men speak and act under divine inspiration, and when by their own unaided human intelligence? When God gave the world inspired apostles and prophets and had established a divine institution for the instruction and guidance of men, we had fondly hoped that at last doubt and uncertainty had been driven out of the minds of those who placed themselves under the tutorship of such instructors and such a divine institution as the Church of Christ; and that now we were placed in a position where an unerring finality might be attained on all questions involving human affairs and human conduct." So indeed, good friends, you have, in the Church of Christ, a means of attaining finality in regard to all those questions that concern your salvation. There is and can be no questioning or doubting concerning the essential principles of the gospel of Christ taught by his Church. Here we stand on the solid rock, not on shifting sands. We can and do know the truth with reference to the matters that concern our salvation; and God in the dispensation of the fulness of times, wherein he has decreed the completion of his work with reference to the salvation of men and the redemption of the earth will never permit man's imperfections and unwisdom to thwart the accomplishment of his great purposes. In these things we stand absolutely secure. But with reference to matters involving merely questions of administration and policy in the Church; matters that do not involve the great and central truths of the gospel—these afford a margin wherein all the human imperfections and limitations of man, even of prophets and apostles, may be displayed; that they, in common with the membership of the Church, may exercise their freedom and agency, and, of course, stand responsible, blamable or praiseable, according as they acquit themselves well or ill in discharging those duties which devolve upon them. In this connection let me say that it should not be matter of surprise to any one that unwise things have been both said and done by some of the best men in the Church. On the contrary, it is matter of congratulation to the Church that so little unwisdom has been manifested by our brethren upon whom God has laid the heavy burdens of so great a work.

As to the matter of attaining certainty in human affairs, that is not to be expected. Is it indeed desirable? "Know ye not that we walk by faith and not by sight?" is the language of Paul to the Saints in his day. By which token I infer that we are placed in this earth-probation to pass through just such experiences as those to which we seem born heirs. Is it not in part the meaning of life that we are here under just such conditions as prevail in order that we may learn the value of better things? Is not this very doubt of ours concerning the finality of things—finality which ever seems to elude our grasp—the means of our education? What mere automatons would we become if we found truth machine-made and limited, that is to say, finite, instead of being as we now find it, infinite and elusive, and attainable only as we beat it out on the anvil of our own experiences? Yet so far as men may be furnished with the means of attaining to certainty concerning the class of things of which we are speaking, the Saints of God are supplied with that means. Their obedience to the gospel brings to them the possession of the Holy Ghost, and it is Mormon doctrine that "by the power of the Holy Ghost we may know the truth of all things." (Moroni.) This Spirit takes of the things of God and makes them known to men. By his testimony we may know that the Lord is God, that Jesus is the Christ, that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. By him bearing witness to our spirits we can recognize the truth, and know when men speak of themselves and when they speak as moved upon by the Holy Spirit. But even with the possession of this Spirit to guide us into all truth, I pray you, nevertheless, not to look for finality in things, for you will look in vain. Intelligence, purity, truth, will always remain with us relative terms and also relative qualities. Ascend to what heights you may, ever beyond you will be other heights in respect of these things, and ever as you ascend more heights will appear, and it is doubtful if we shall ever attain the absolute in respect of these qualities.[A] Our joy will be the joy of approximating them, of attaining unto ever increasing excellence, without attaining the absolute. It will be the joy of eternal progress. Something too much of this. Let me hasten to a word in conclusion.

[Footnote A: Since the above discourse was delivered I have read the following in the "Hibbert Journal" for April, 1907; and I feel that the though is too well expressed to omit the quotation of it here: