24. Sanctity of the Body.—The Church counsels its members that each regard his body as "the temple of God;"[1311] and that he maintain its purity and sanctity as such. He is taught that the Spirit of the Lord dwells not in unclean tabernacles; and that, therefore, he is required to live according to the laws of health, which constitute part of the law of God. For the special guidance of His Saints, the Lord has revealed a "Word of Wisdom"[1312] unto the people; in accordance with which they are counseled to eat wholesome food only; to abstain from strong drink, hot drinks, and all kinds of stimulants and narcotics; to eat flesh but sparingly, and to maintain in all respects a healthful state of the physical organism. And, on condition of their compliance with these behests, the Saints have been promised, that all "Who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel, and marrow in their bones, and shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; and shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint; And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel."[1313]
NOTES.
1. Love, the Fulfilling of the Law.—"Peter says, 'Above all things have fervent love [charity] among yourselves' [I Peter iv, 8]. Above all things. And John goes farther, 'God is love' [I John iv, 8]. And you remember the profound remark which Paul makes elsewhere, 'Love is the fulfilling of the law' [Rom. xiii, 10; Gal. v, 14]. Did you ever think what he meant by that? In those days men were working their passage to heaven by keeping the ten commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments which they had manufactured out of them. Christ said, I will show you a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten things without ever thinking about them. If you love, you will unconsciously fulfil the whole law.... Take any of the commandments, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' If a man love God you will not require to tell him that. Love is the fulfilling of that law. 'Take not his name in vain.' Would he ever dream of taking his name in vain if he loved him? 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' Would he not be too glad to have one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his affection? Love would fulfil all these laws regarding God. And so if he loved man, you would never think of telling him to honor his father and mother. He could never do anything else. It would be preposterous to tell him not to kill. You could only insult him if you suggested that he should not steal,—how could he steal from those he loved? It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witness against his neighbor. If he loved him it would be the last thing he would do. And you would never dream of urging him not to covet what his neighbors had. He would rather they possessed it than himself. In this way 'Love is the fulfilling of the law.'"—Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World.
2. Charity and Love.—"According to the etymology and original usage, beneficence is the doing well, benevolence the wishing or willing well to others; but benevolence has come to include beneficence and to displace it.... Charity, which originally meant the purest love for God and man (as in I Cor. xiii), is now almost universally applied to some form of alms-giving and is much more limited in meaning than benevolence."—Standard Dictionary.
Charity means "properly, love, and hence acts of kindness. The word never occurs in the Old Testament; in the New Testament it is always, with one exception, synonymous with love, and in every case the love of man toward his fellow man, and to that which is good (see especially I Cor. xiii). The 'feasts of charity' in Jude 12, are commonly understood to be the agapæ, or 'love-feasts,' which were prevalent in the early church, and which consisted in a simple fraternal meeting for worship, and an equally simple social repast."—Bible Dictionary, Cassell.
"Charity is only a little bit of love; one of the innumerable avenues of love, and there may even be, and there is a great deal of charity without love. It is a very easy thing to toss a copper to a beggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing than not to do it.... We purchase relief from the sympathetic feelings roused by the spectacle of misery, at the copper's cost. It is too cheap—too cheap for us, and often too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him, we would either do more for him or less."—Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World.
3. Man's Relationship to God.—"'Mormonism' claims an actual and literal relationship of parent and child between the Creator and man—not in the figurative sense in which the engine may be called the child of its builder; not the relationship of a thing mechanically made to the maker thereof; but the connection between father and offspring. In short it is bold enough to declare that man's spirit being the offspring of Deity, and man's body though of earthy components yet being in the very image and likeness of God, man even in his present degraded—aye, fallen condition—still possesses, if only in a latent state, inherited traits, tendencies and powers that tell of his more than royal descent; and that these may be developed so as to make him, even while mortal, in a measure Godlike.
"But 'Mormonism' is bolder yet. It asserts that in accordance with the inviolable law of organic nature—that like shall beget like, and that multiplication of numbers and perpetuation of species shall be in compliance with the condition 'each after his kind,' the child may achieve the former status of the parent, and that in his mortal condition man is a God in embryo. However far in the future it may be, what ages may elapse, what eternities may pass before any individual now a mortal being may attain the rank and sanctity of godship, nevertheless man carries in his soul the possibilities of such achievement; even as the crawling caterpillar or the corpse-like chrysalis holds the latent possibility, nay, barring destruction in an earlier stage, the certainty indeed, of the winged imago in all the glory of maturity.
"'Mormonism' claims that all nature, both on earth and in heaven, operates on a plan of advancement; that the very Eternal Father is a progressive Being; that his perfection, while so complete as to be incomprehensible by man, possesses this essential quality of true perfection—the capacity of eternal increase. That therefore, in the far future, beyond the horizon of eternities perchance, man may attain the status of a God. Yet this does not mean that he shall be then the equal of the Deity we worship, nor that he shall ever overtake those intelligences that are already beyond him in advancement; for to assert such would be to argue that there is no progression beyond a certain stage of attainment, and that advancement is a characteristic of low organization and inferior purpose alone. We believe that there was more than the sounding of brass or the tinkling of wordy cymbals in the fervent admonition of the Christ to his followers—'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.'"—The Philosophy of Mormonism: The Author, in Improvement Era, vol. iv, pp. 464-465.
[APPENDIX.]
Note.—In view of the expressed wish of the Church authorities, by whose direction this work is published, that the Lectures on the "Articles of Faith" be used as a text-book and work of reference in the various theological organizations of the Church, a series of questions and suggestive exercises, for the work of class review, is herewith presented.
LECTURE I.
Introductory.
1. What is Theology? (State, 1, derivation of the word; 2, extent of the science.)