After this testimony to the knowledge of the gospel existing among the ancients, it is useless for modern critics of the Book of Mormon to complain of the knowledge of the Christian institution possessed by the Nephites, and the fact that the Book of Mormon proclaims the existence of that knowledge. If it shall be said that the Nephites had clearer conceptions of it than the people inhabiting the old world, that fact would arise not out of God's unwillingness to make known the great truth, but to the fact that the Nephites succeeded in living more nearly within his favor; and hence their clearer knowledge of the truth.
It should be remembered that prophecy is but history reversed. Known unto God are all his works and words from the beginning to the end; and at various times he has made known future events in the clearest manner to his prophets who, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, have recorded them. The Prophet Isaiah, 150 years before the birth of Cyrus, foretold his name; declared that he should subdue kingdoms, including Babylon, set free the people of God held in bondage there, and rebuild the House of the Lord at Jerusalem. And all this as clearly as the historians could write it after the events themselves took place. To Daniel he revealed the rise, fall and succession of the leading empires and nations of the world, even to the time of the establishment of God's Kingdom in power to hold universal sway in the latter days, an event not yet fulfilled.
It is clearer even from the Hebrew scriptures that the Lord has been willing, and even anxious, that a knowledge of the Christian institution should be had among men from the beginning. To the prophets of Israel, in fact, nearly every important event in the life of the Savior was made known. They foretold that he would be born of a virgin; that his name would signify "God with us;" that Bethlehem would be the place of his birth; that he would sojourn in Egypt with his parents; that he would reside in Nazareth, for "He shall be called a Nazarene;" that a messenger would prepare the way before him; that he should ride in triumph into Jerusalem upon a colt, the foal of an ass; that he would be afflicted and despised; that he would be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; that he would be despised and rejected of men; that men would turn their faces from him in his affliction; that he would be esteemed as stricken and smitten of God; that he would be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; that the chastisement of us men would be laid upon him, and by his stripes would be healed; that upon him would God lay the iniquity of us all; that for the transgressions of God's peoples would he be stricken; that he would be oppressed and afflicted, yet open not his mouth; that as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so would he be silent before his judges; that he would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver; that men would divide his raiment and cast lots for his vesture; that they would give to him gall and vinegar to drink; that not a bone of him should be broken; that he should be taken from prison and from judgment, and be cut out of the land of the living; that he would make his grave with the wicked and the rich in his death; but notwithstanding this he should not see corruption (i. e., his body decay), and that on the third day following his death he should rise triumphant from the grave. All this and much more was foretold by the ancient Hebrew prophets concerning the Messiah. This is prophetic history.
In like manner to the Nephites his prophetic history was made known, and is found in the Book of Mormon in some instances in greater plainness than in the Old Testament, because, for one thing—in addition to the suggestion made that the Nephites may have lived nearer to the Lord than other branches of the house of Israel—the Nephite scriptures have not passed through the hands of an Aristobulus, a Philo and other rabbis, who by interpretation or elimination have taken away some of the plain and precious parts of the Jewish scriptures. Surely if the Lord revealed to the Jewish prophets these leading events in the history of the Savior ages before the Messiah's birth, it ought not to be thought a strange thing if God imparted the same knowledge to the Nephite prophets. Nor can the fact that he did so, and that in plainer terms than in the revelations to the Jews, be held as valid objections to the Book of Mormon.
V.
The Unlawfulness of Establishing the Priesthood With Other Than the Tribe of Levi.
Somewhat akin to the objections last considered is one based upon the claim that it would be unlawful to establish a Priesthood other than that founded by Moses, when he chose the tribe of Levi to officiate in holy ordinances. In order that this objection, however, may be stated in its full force I quote it as set forth by Alexander Campbell, not even omitting the unfortunate coarseness of his language which was so unworthy of his character, and which I assign to the spirit of those times when coarseness was so often mistaken for forcefulness.
Smith, its real author [i. e., of the Book of Mormon], as ignorant and as impudent a knave as ever wrote a book, betrays the cloven foot in basing his whole book upon a false fact, or a pretended fact, which makes God a liar. It is this: with the Jews God made a covenant at Mount Sinai, and instituted a priesthood, he separated Levi, and covenanted to give him this office irrevocably while ever the temple stood, or till the Messiah came. "Then," says God, "Moses shall appoint Aaron and his sons and they shall wait on the priest's office, and the stranger (the person of another family) who cometh nigh shall be put to death." (Numbers iii: 10.) "And the priests and sons of Levi shall come near; for them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him, and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried." (Deut. xxi: 5). Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with 250 men of renown, rebelled against a part of the institution of the Priesthood, and the Lord destroyed them in the presence of the whole congregation. This was to be a memorial that no stranger invade any part of the office of the Priesthood. (Numbers xvi: 40). Fourteen thousand and seven hundred of the people were destroyed by a plague for murmuring against the memorial.
In the 18th chapter of Numbers the Levites are again given to Aaron and his sons, and of the priesthood confirmed to them with this threat—"The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death." "Even Jesus," says Paul, "were he on earth, could not be a priest; for he was of a tribe concerning which Moses spake nothing of priesthood." (Heb. vii: 13). So irrevocable was the grant of the priesthood to Levi, and of the high priesthood to Aaron, that no stranger dare approach the altar of God which Moses established. Hence Jesus himself was excluded from officiating as priest on earth according to the law.
This Joseph Smith overlooked in his impious fraud, and makes his hero, Lehi, spring from Joseph. And just as soon as his sons return from the roll of his lineage, ascertaining that he was of the tribe of Joseph, he and his sons acceptably "offer sacrifices and burnt offerings to the Lord." (p. 15, first edition.)[[5]] Also it is repeated (p. 18)—Nephi became chief artificer, shipbuilder, and mariner; was scribe, prophet, priest, and king unto his own people, and "consecrated Jacob and Joseph, the sons of his father, priests to God and teachers—almost 600 years before the fulness of the times of the Jewish economy was completed. (p. 72.) Nephi represents himself withal "as under the law of Moses" (p. 105). They built a new temple in the new world, and in 55 years after they leave Jerusalem, make a new priesthood which God approbates. A high priest is also consecrated and yet they are all the while "teaching the law of Moses, and exhorting the people to keep it!" (pp. 146, 209.) Thus God is represented as instituting, approbating and blessing a new priesthood from the tribe of Joseph, concerning which Moses gave no commandment concerning priesthood. Although God had promised in the law of Moses that if any man, not of the tribe and family of Levi and Aaron should approach the office of priest, he would surely die; he is represented by Smith as blessing, approbating, and sustaining another family in this appropriated office. The God of Abraham or Joseph Smith must, then, be a liar! And who will hesitate to pronounce him an imposter? This lie runs through his record for the first 600 years of his history.
I have stated this objection, at length, because much importance has been attached to it and many have regarded it as unanswerable. I consider its importance has been exaggerated, and the whole objection based upon conceptions of the right and power of God and his freedom of action, as altogether too narrow and dogmatic.
It is to be observed, first of all, that the inhibitions against others being appointed to the priesthood that was given to Aaron and the Levites, are inhibitions against "men" assuming the right to institute any other order of priesthood in Israel, or to grant the rights of this priesthood to any other tribe than that appointed by the Lord. Because of these inhibitions against "men" presuming to change the order which God has established, to therefore assume that God, to meet other conditions—such as these, for instance in the establishment of a branch of the house of Israel in the new world—the case of Lehi and his colony—that God cannot make such changes in the matter of establishing a priesthood as seemeth him good, is preposterous.