"The belief of the Latter-day Saints regarding the personality of God and our relationship to him has been crystallized by President Lorenzo Snow into the aphorism, one of the most expressive in the language: 'As man is, God once was; as God is, man may be.' No statement could set forth more clearly the nature of God's exaltation and man's destiny."—Manual, 1901-2, part I, page 17.
"We shall now proceed to show from new revelations that the saints are to have equal knowledge with the Father and the Son * * * The fullness of all truth in us will make us Gods, equal in all things with the personages of the Father and the Son; and we could not be otherwise than equal, for he is the same God who dwells in us that dwells in them. Instead of dwelling in two tabernacles under the names of Father and Son, he will then dwell in the additional tabernacles of the saints. And wherever he dwells in fulness, there would necessarily be equality in wisdom, power, glory and dominion."—Orson Pratt in The Seer, page 121.
"Thus perfected, the whole family will possess the material universe—that is, the earth and all the other planets and worlds, as an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. They will also continue to organize people and redeem and perfect other systems which are now in the womb of chaos, and thus go on increasing their several dominions, till the weakest child of God which now exists upon earth will possess more dominions, more property, more subjects and more power and glory than is possessed by Jesus Christ or by his Father; while at the same time Jesus Christ and his Father will have their dominions, kingdoms and subjects increased in proportion."—Parley P. Pratt, quoted by Roberts in The Mormon Doctrine of Deity, page 257.
"They are capable of receiving intelligence and exaltation to such a degree as to be raised from the dead with a body like that of Jesus Christ, and to possess immortal flesh and bones, in which they will still eat, drink, converse, reason, love, walk, sing, play on musical instruments, go on missions from planet to planet, or from system to system; being Gods or saints of God, endowed with the same powers, attributes and capacities that their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ possess."—Parley P. Pratt, quoted by Roberts in The Mormon Doctrine of Deity, page 257.
"They who have obeyed the laws of the Gospel received the Holy Ghost, obtained and honored the priesthood and lived lives of righteousness, remaining faithful in spite of persecution and earthly tribulation, shall be admitted to the celestial glory. Here they will enjoy the personal presence and gory of the Father and the Son; they will be kings and priests of the most high, those in the highest degree of this glory shall have thrones, dominion and endless increase; they shall be Gods creating and governing worlds and peopling them with their offspring."—Manual, 1901-2, part I, page 52.
"God always attached a special and honorable distinction to males and females engaged in the sacred system of plurality according to the conditions he laid down for them to observe."—Spencer's Letters, page 195.
"Their great duty was to become the progenitors of the human family—to prepare mortal tabernacles for God's immortal children. It was Adam's privilege and duty to become the patriarch of this earth—the parent of all its inhabitants. In this great labor and destiny his wife, Eve, was to be associated with him. Before them was a future of endless glory, happiness and power, to be gained through the great principle of parentage. To attain this glory, present sorrow, pain and difficulty would have to be experienced and overcome. The other law was negative and prohibitive: 'Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat.' If the fall was essential and it was a part of God's design that a law be broken in order that man might be subject to sin and death, this latter law was well adapted for the purpose. For the consequences of the breaking of this law were such as to fit in with the designs of God, and the breach of the law would not apparently interfere with the accomplishment of any high destiny. If either law was to be broken, it was far better that this negative one be broken than the other.
"Eve was deceived and tempted. * * * She told Adam what she had done and he fully realized the consequences of her act. It meant that he and she could no longer remain together; that they must move in different spheres—he in the higher, she in the lower—she should be cast out of the garden and he should remain. * * * But he remembered that Eve had been given him as an eternal companion. He remembered the great commandment: Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. This he could not obey, for Eve, his wife, was to be separated from him forever. He was therefore under the necessity of deciding which was the greater and more important commandment of the two—the negative one: Thou shalt not eat of the tree; or the positive one: Thou shalt multiply and replenish the earth. And he decided wisely—he would break the negative commandment and keep the positive one."—Manual, 1901-2, Part 1, pages 39-41.
"Marriage thus becomes one of the chief means of man's exaltation and glory in the world to come, whereby he may have endless increase of eternal lives and attain at length to the power of the God-head. It was this glorious doctrine in connection with the baptism, redemption and sealing for the dead, that was the uppermost theme of the Prophet Joseph during the last two years or more of his life."—A Brief History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by Apostle George Q. Cannon, page 138, published 1893.
"I would here say that the promise made to Abraham and to all who are heirs of the same promise through faith extends to all generations in this life and to all generations to come forever and ever. That is, Abraham and Sarah will continue to multiply not only in this world, but in all the worlds to come. And the same is true of all the sons and daughters that obtain the fulness of the promise made to Abraham. * * * Will the resurrection return you a mere female acquaintance that is not to be the wife of your bosom in eternity? No; God forbid; but it will restore you the wife of your bosom, immortalized, who shall bear children from your own loins in all the worlds to come, and that without pain or sorrow in travail. This, sir, was couched in the promise of Abraham; this makes the promise great."—Spencer's Letters, pages 204-5.
"Each pair the Eve and Adam of some world, Perchance unborn, un orbited and unwhirled." (Where they shall) "reign as queens and kings, Where endless union endless increase brings."
—Apostle Whitney, Elijah, pp. 103-4.
"Except a man and his wife enter into an everlasting covenant and be married for eternity while in this probation, by the power and authority of the holy priesthood, they will cease to increase when they die; that is, they will not have any children after the resurrection. But those who are married by the power and authority of the priesthood in this life, and continue without committing the sin against the Holy Ghost, will continue to increase and have children in the celestial glory. * * * In the celestial glory there are three degrees or heavens, and in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood, and if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase."—Quoted in Young Men's Improvement Manual from Joseph Smith, Mill. Star, page 108.
"I wish to be perfectly understood here. Let it be remembered that the Prophet Joseph Smith taught that man, that is his spirit, is the offspring of Deity; not in any mythical sense, but actually. * * * Instead of the God-given power of procreation being one of the chief things that is to pass away, it is one of the chief means of man's exaltation and glory in that great eternity which like an endless vista stretches out before him. * * * Through that law, in connection with an observance of all the other laws of the Gospel, man will yet attain unto the power of the God-head, and like his Father—God—his chief glory will be to bring to pass the eternal life and happiness of his posterity."—Roberts, New Witness for God, page 461.
"The devil and his angels having forfeited in their first estate all right to enter a second with bodies of flesh and bones, and having lost the privilege of marrying and propagating their species, feel maliciously wicked and envious against the sons of men who kept their first estate and now are in the enjoyment of the second, marrying and increasing their families or kingdoms."—Orson Pratt in The Seer, page 79.
"Parents for the want of that holy and pure affection which exists in the bosom of the righteous, not only destroy their own happiness, but impress their own degraded and unlawful passions upon the constitution of their offspring. It is for this reason that God will not permit the fallen angels to multiply. It is for this reason that God has ordained marriage for the righteous only. It is for this reason that God will put a final stop to the multiplication of the wicked after this life. It is for this reason that none but those who have kept the celestial law will be permitted to multiply after the resurrection. It is for this reason that God has so ordained that the righteous shall have a plurality of wives; for they alone are prepared to beget and bring forth offspring whose bodies and spirits, partaking of the nature of the parents, are pure and lovely, and will manifest, as they increase in years, those heaven-born excellencies so necessary to lead them to happiness and eternal life."—Orson Pratt in The Seer, pages 157-8.
The "Address" has somewhat to say regarding the holy priesthood, but what is said affords one unacquainted with the church but little idea of the relation which this order sustains to the whole ecclesiastical system. In reality everything centers here. Admit the church's contention for its priesthood and you have yielded the most essential things which it claims. "We affirm that, to administer in the ordinances of the Gospel, authority must be given of God; and that this authority is the power of the holy priesthood. We affirm that, through the ministration of immortal personages, the holy priesthood has been conferred upon men in the present age, and that, under this divine authority, the Church of Christ has been organized." So it is declared, but the teaching of the church on this most important doctrine is not herein candidly set forth. The appended extracts will show that the basis for the exercise of arbitrary power of its membership lies in the church's claim for the "holy priesthood," and that their power extends not only to things spiritual, but to secular matters as well. Furthermore, it will be seen that when once the church's claim for its priesthood is allowed, the claim of jurisdiction in civil matters logically follows. The members of the priesthood claim the special power to interpret scriptures, and the president of the church, who is also chief of the high priesthood, is the prophet, seer and revelator of God to the church and to the world.
If it was the purpose of the leaders to keep the mass of the membership under such control as would effectually destroy all liberty of action, and would curb that freedom of thought to which all responsible people are entitled, then it is difficult to see how any better scheme for achieving that purpose could have been devised than the Mormon doctrine of the "holy priesthood." Given a people who endorse its high claims and submit to them, and you have a community which is under the tyranny of arbitrary rulership. That such power should be provided for in any system, civil or ecclesiastical, and should not be used, is incompatible with the known facts in human nature. That the full power of the Mormon priesthood is exercised is not a matter of doubt among well-informed people.
"I shall then define priesthood to be that order of authoritative intelligences by which God regulates, controls, enlightens, blesses or curses, saves or condemns all beings. To it under God all things are subservient in righteousness, whether in heaven or hell."—Spencer's Letters, page 94.
"Men who hold the priesthood possess divine authority thus to act for God; and by possessing part of God's power they are in reality part of God. * * * Men who honor the priesthood in them, honor God, and those who reject it, reject God."—New Witness for God, page 187.
"The priesthood is the authority delegated to men to act in the name of God, and to have those acts approved of him. Whatever is done by this authority is as if God himself had done it. The one holding the priesthood becomes an agent of the Lord. * * * The curse of God on Cain, the flood, the rejection and dispersion of Israel, the destruction of Jerusalem—these are all typical instances of the judgments of God following the lack of reverence for his priesthood. * * * Faith in the priesthood in general must be supplemented by a specific faith in those who hold the keys of the priesthood and preside in its various organizations, Priesthood without presidency would be unorganized and lacking in efficiency. * * * We cannot honor the priesthood if we do not honor those who hold its keys. They are indeed the living oracles of our time, and the voice of inspiration from them is as the voice of God to us."—Manual, 1901-2, part I, pages 81, 82.
"There is also a tendency among the youth, and I am sorry to say among some of the older ones, to show but little regard for the sacredness of the holy priesthood. What I mean by the holy priesthood is that authority which God has delegated to man by which he may speak the will of God as though the angels were here to speak it themselves; by which men are empowered to bind on earth and it shall be bound in heaven, and to loose on earth and it shall be loosed in heaven; by which the words of men spoken in the exercise of that power become the word of the Lord, the law of God, unto the people scripture and divine commands. It is therefore not good that the Latter-day Saints and the children of Latter-day Saints should treat lightly this sacred principle of authority which has been revealed from the heavens in the dispensation in which we live. It is the authority by which the Lord Almighty governs his people, and by it in time to come he will govern the nations of the world."—Report of seventy-second conference, page 2, October 4-6, 1901.
"Before all lands in east or west
We love the land of Zion best;
With God's choice gifts 'tis teeming.
There, prophets, seers, as of old
The mysteries of heaven unfold.
Through holy priesthood streaming."
—Sunday School Hymnal, No. 61.
One other observation must be made before leave is taken of this part of the defense before the world. It touches a matter which in importance dwarfs everything mentioned in the "Address." Apparently the foundation of the Mormon Church is in the "Book of Mormon," the "Doctrine and Covenants," the "Pearl of Great Price," and the testimony of the "Living Oracles," delivered from time to time. But whoever digs down to the lowermost foundation will find that, at last, everything rests upon the reported visions of Joseph Smith. When any matter of vital importance is presented for the belief of mankind, if that matter, either in its nature or the circumstances attending it, lies very much outside the ordinary, a due regard for human intelligence demands that whatever testimony is produced in support of it shall be buttressed by corroborative evidence. But here we have a system of religion which claims sole authority as being alone divinely accredited. It asks for the acceptance of mankind on the ground of being so accredited. It anathematizes all who finally reject it. Yet this religion, making such an astonishing claim, is founded upon the unsupported assertion of a young person whose probity was not yet so well established that his naked word would be taken concerning any matter transcending ordinary observation and experience; and that assertion touches supernatural appearances, and messages which, if true, are of the most profound importance to mankind, and yet that assertion is wholly without corroborating evidence. We are asked to believe that, after seventeen centuries of apostasy on the part of his church, and 1700 years of silence on his own part, God broke this long silence at last with a message to a hitherto unbelieving world, which would determine the destiny of mankind, but that he so discredited human intelligence as to send that all-important message by an ambassador without credentials.
In short, the Mormon Church has not yet given the world any satisfactory evidence that the foundation upon which it rests its enormous claim entitles that claim to any serious consideration. Here is the fatal destitution of the whole system. And no defense that can be set up for the doctrines or practices of the church, or for its history, or for the character of its people, however strong or adroit that defense may be, can veil their mortal weakness.
Attention is called in the "Address" to plural marriages and polygamous living. We have no means of knowing to what extent the practice of plural marriage has been discontinued in the Mormon Church, since no records of such marriages are kept by the church that are accessible to the public. That there have been instances of such marriages, even since the agreement of the church to discontinue them, we know; that they cannot be celebrated without the sanction of the church, through accredited officials, is unquestioned; that, so far as the public knowledge goes, no officials who may have celebrated such marriages have been disciplined therefor, is certain. The doctrine of plural marriage yet appears in the accepted standards of the church unchanged, in face of the promise made by the president of the church that the Woodruff manifesto should be printed, in the later editions of such standards. That the practice is not now as open or as common as in the days of Brigham Young may be conceded. But that it is, at most, suspended by church decree, and not abrogated, is well understood here.
No denial was made of the practice of polygamous living. The "Address" admits that authoritative figures officially collected show 897 such male polygamists in the year 1902. The fact that later reports are not quoted leads to the reasonable belief that since that date the number of male polygamists has not diminished, but rather has increased. But even if this conclusion is not valid, these figures given have a very grave significance. We have this condition before us: In a sect, numbering at the outside some 400,000 souls, many of whom—half or more—are children or mere adherents, at the very least 2,691 persons are living in polygamy. This would be true if each of the 897 male polygamists had only two consorts; but, since in many cases there are more than two, the whole number of persons living in polygamy is considerably larger than the figures just named would indicate. It seems quite probable that far more than 1,800 families in this sect are polygamous families. All of these people are living in violation of the law. Each one of them has a circle of relatives and friends, most of whom will not only condone, but will sympathize with the criminal. These people are rearing children, a majority of whom have been born under ban of the law. Moreover, they are now maintaining their relations against the decree of the church, as interpreted under oath by the church leaders, and yet none of them have been subjected to church discipline for polygamous living. What must reasonable people think of it when such a condition is approved and sustained by a church claiming to be the only church of Christ in the earth—a church strong enough to control all conditions in the state, political, social and civil?
Toleration of these criminals, mercy and charity toward them, is claimed on the ground: First, that toleration has been shown them in the past. It is even said that the "toleration under which the practice of plural marriage became firmly established binds the United States and its people, if indeed they are not bound by considerations of mercy and wisdom, to the exercise and patience and charity in dealing with this question." Second, that wisdom in dealing with the matter in the future prescribes it. But to this it must be replied that the "toleration" of former years was not the toleration of choice, but the endurance of a reprobated condition while there were no adequate means at hand to correct it. And, in the next place, when the church insists upon the doctrine of polygamy as divinely revealed and enjoined; when the governing body of the church publicly honors those who practice it; when its chief officials openly, and with mutual approbation therefor, live in it; when the officials studiously refrain from any public act in restraint of it—when all this is true, we must hold it to be doubtful whether the practice of polygamous living ever will die out under any system of toleration. And thoughtful people will conclude, in the light of these facts, that the only mercy and charity which is logical is that which will, with a strong hand, defend society at large from the taint of such flagitious precepts, examples and practices. Wisdom does not prescribe toleration toward other unlawful conduct; nor does experience show that such a method of dealing with offenders is so conspicuously successful in restraining crime as to encourage that policy. In addition to this, when we consider the fact that men have lived in polygamous relations here for years without the fact being generally acknowledged, or even known; when the church teaches the doctrine of polygamy as a divinely-revealed "principle," such precept being supplemented by the powerful example of its highest officials; and when the president of the church makes a virtue of his contumacy in this regard, we must be pardoned if we declare that no sufficient evidence that polygamous living is dying out, or is likely to die out, has yet been produced.