Letters Exhibiting the Most Prominent Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

by Orson Spencer

Omitting Ezekiel, I will next introduce the testimony of Isaiah. This prophet has probably said more on the re-establishment of the church in the last days, and the surpassing glory of it than any other, and deserves rather to be read as a whole than suffer mutilation from a single extract or two. How any man can read Isaiah's testimony and not see that an extraordinary scene, just like the one I have been describing, was in full vision before him, it is difficult to explain, except their hearts are waxed gross and dull to perceive, and the veil remains untaken away in reading the Old Testament prophecies.

Instead of citing passages of scripture verbatim, I will here name topics, which Isaiah distinctly exhibited, bearing directly upon the subject at issue. First, he speaks unequivocally of an extraordinary BOOK, and says it would be a "sealed book," that neither the learned or unlearned could read. Second, in the context, he gives a cutting rebuke, because there is no prophet or seer to read it; and administers a most withering reproof to the religious world, that draw near to Him with their lips, and honour Him with their mouths only; and for lack of the spirit of revelation and prophecy, resort to their own ingenuity of teaching the fear of the Lord by human precepts. Third, he says, the "vision" of all is become as a BOOK that is sealed which cannot be read. How is this, sir, that the prophecies and revelations of all are locked up in a book, that neither learned nor unlearned can read, and the men that uttered them, prophets and seers, are covered—shut out from the knowledge of mankind?

The visions of the Old and New Testament are so plainly legible in many books, that he who runs may read. Those who had these latter visions, instead of being covered or unknown, are well known, and preached every Sabbath day. Don't shrink from this issue, sir, but meet it like one who feels his destiny to be suspended on a correct faith in revealed truth. What mysterious collection of visions, arranged into the form of a BOOK, that no uninspired man can read, IS THIS? It must be the visions of some prophets and seers, that have lived and prophesied to some people, that have now faded from the knowledge of men. Mankind is ignorant of them. And when the BOOK, that contains their records is found (taken out of the earth, as I shall show by Isaiah's testimony), no man can read it or is the wiser for it (unless God reveals it).

Now, sir, as you are a teacher, professing to be sent from God, I again ask, whose visions are all these, so curiously wrapped up in a BOOK, and sealed too, and kept hid from the knowledge of mankind? You will not deny that the prophet saw a book, containing important records of some certain unknown prophets and seers. But if you believe the prophet, as I know you do, and humbly acknowledge, that you cannot tell what this mysterious BOOK of RECORDS means; then, by the spirit and blessing of God, I will further endeavour to show that it is the same that the angel announced to the young man Joseph.

This mysterious BOOK of records was found in that identical stone, spoken of by Daniel the prophet. The prophets and seers, whose records constitute that book, lived among a mighty nation on the American continent, whose history is as important as that of other continents in its place.

Another topic dwelt upon by Isaiah is, that "truth" (plainly alluding to this book of inspired records) should "speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust."

Is it a marvellous thing that this wonderful book of the visions of all the American seers should be so skilfully entombed in stone, and then buried in the earth? Where should they have deposited it, so that it could have answered the purpose intended, so well as in the ground? How could the STONE, containing it, ever have been CUT OUT OF THE MOUNTAIN WITHOUT HANDS, if it had never been put into the mountain? Isaiah says, the people should be besieged and brought low (nearly all were slain), but by the records of their seers should, after a long time, speak out of the ground, and their records should be as the voice of a familiar spirit. Who, sir, that has read them does not clearly perceive that they speak familiarly of things past, present, and to come? So truly do these records speak of what shall transpire, after the BOOK has been shewn to them, that many have slanderously said, that it was written by an eye witness of the things spoken of. It speaks also of the ruins of cities—of antiquities since discovered on the American continent, by travellers and antiquarians, that have excited the curiosity and wonder of the world.

This Book of Mormon, is one of the most unexceptionable and God-honouring books that was ever published to the world. An uninspired man might as well attempt to originally compose the Old and New Testament, as it. Its language (the best butt of cavaliers) is said not to harmonize with the philological rules of the nineteenth century. One word in reply. Peter and John were illiterate men, who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and their language was accredited to unlearned men by their hearers. Now, if redundant and ungrammatical language may be the medium through which the Holy Ghost communicates by men in speaking, may it not with equal propriety be employed in writing, by a similar class of men? It is not denied, that there is something wonderful about all this matter. The prophet Isaiah considered it wonderful, when he calls it a "marvellous work: a marvellous work and a wonder." "The wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent shall be hid." All the learned commentaries of divines, as this gospel advances, shall be buried in oblivion, as so much rubbish.

God declares, by the same prophet, that he has seen the wickedness of the wicked, and the oppression of the poor and upright, until he rises up to "do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act." He warns men against making a mock of this strange and marvellous work, lest their "bands be made strong," for he has "decreed a consumption upon the whole earth." This is what John also says;—"The hour of His judgment" is measurably simultaneous with the proclamation of the gospel. Habakkuk, the prophet, told men to wait for this same vision of American prophets, written on tables (tabular plates), which would be a long time before it made its appearance; but it would "surely come," because God had promised these seers that a remnant of their seed, on that continent, should be saved. No pen can describe the joy and exultation that they must have felt in obtaining such a promise, or the bliss now experienced by them in the fulfilment of it. But for the fulfilment of this promise, none of them or their righteous contemporaries would ever have been made perfect.

Oh! how great the goodness and mercy of God to every nation, without respect of persons! How great, too, the indebtedness of this generation to Almighty God for that most precious "stone" of prophetic records, that reveals at once the history of the American continent—a continent of otherwise unfathomable antiquities and wonders—a land that embowels the bones of a numerous and mighty race of people, with all their implements of husbandry and of art! Where, also, are the ruins of splendid cities, the former glory of which might surpass even gigantic London! Within that stone, too, was written with a pen of iron, as infallibly as the marks on Belshazzar's palace, the future destiny of the American people.