After the expulsion of Lucifer and his associates from heaven, order and harmony were restored, and the everlasting system of progressive intelligence and felicity again established on an immutable basis, so far as heaven was concerned. And even among the third part of heaven, drawn away by the apostacy of Lucifer, there might possibly have been some persons capable of ultimate restoration in the interminable ages of futurity. Of this, however, it may, perhaps, be said that no man knoweth. No man, surely can know unless it is revealed to him from heaven. The possibility, however, of redeeming all flesh from the transgression laid upon mankind in this mortal state, through obedience to the gospel, is abundantly revealed in the scriptures. However wrong may have been the conduct and opinions of the inhabitants of the earth, obedience to the gospel will reinstate them in the course of permanent felicity, intelligence, and righteousness.
There are particular and set times for the restitution of all those things which God has spoken of by the prophets. God hath spoken of the subject of restitution by all the prophets since the world began; indeed there never was a prophet on the earth whose business did not engage him more or less in the work of restitution. But long periods have elapsed on the earth in which no prophets have been known. During such periods the work of restitution has invariably ceased. Iniquity and misery have been made to abound, and gross darkness has spread over all people. But at particular periods God would raise up prophets, and then the work of restitution would commence and continue until the prophets were slain or otherwise removed from the earth. It is during such particular times of restitution in the latter days, that even Jesus himself may appear from the heavens, in order to give direction and mighty impulse to the work of restitution. Noah was raised up to stay the progress of wickedness and build up the waste places. Wickedness was swept off the earth according to his prophecyings and teachings, and a race of righteous men put in the place of the wicked to people the earth. It was also a time of restitution when Abraham was commissioned to reform mankind by truth and judgment, teaching them to walk in the old paths of revelation and immediate and constant intercourse with the heavens.
Again, in mercy God raised up Moses, and recommenced the same work of restitution which was subsequently undertaken by John the Baptist, under the immediate supervision of Jesus himself. But it was not competent for any one prophet, in the short period of his ministry on the earth, to set everything right that was wrong; but each did what he could, under existing circumstances, with the people with whom he had to do. The spirit of revelation rested upon each successive prophet to perform that work which was most fit and necessary to the age in which he lived. No one could attend to all things; and many things are yet to be revealed that have been kept secret since the foundation of the world. No man has ever understood all those measures and principles by which the human family can be brought to the highest degree of perfection. The angels probably do not know them, and even the Son himself did not know them, but the Father only.
The reign of a thousand years of righteousness will probably do much to correct, ennoble, and exalt mankind, and beautify the works of his hands, and felicitate all flesh. Whatever principles and measures can contribute to exalt and felicitate mankind in the sight of the heavens, is yet to be done. The profound philosophy and science of the highest intelligences, with all the embellishments which art, and taste, and genius can secure, are destined to become tributary to the righteous; and when these things shall take place in the times of the restitution of all things, God will be crowned with ineffable glory and honour, blessing and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen.
The spirit of apostacy has stripped and shorn true religion of all its luscious and beautiful fruit, and left nothing scarcely but the naked withered hulk of false spirituality. Religion has been taught, by protestant dissenters, as a science almost wholly abstracted from civil government—from political, social, and domestic institutions, and also from the useful and fine arts. It has been circumscribed to the most revoltingly contracted limits.
In the zeal of its advocates to put down an illegitimate and bastardly union of church and state, that had long darkened the moral atmosphere of the earth, and made nations groan under oppression, and sigh and mourn that religion was the wedded ally of the civil sceptre, they pushed off into the opposite extreme of imbecile, naked, and sterile spirituality; thereby proving, plainly, that any religion that is not based on constant and immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, can neither walk long with or without the crutches of governmental aid and support. It will not only become a stink in the nostrils of Jehovah, but soon cause great dissatisfaction and fall into merited contempt and ignominy.
The best biographies of such men as David Brainard and Edward Payson, is a fair exhibition of internal mental turmoil, and fitful commotion of spirit, and servile bondage to a law that neither they nor their fathers could keep. Poor misguided but honest men! How happy might they have been had they known the true primitive gospel that Paul preached, by the infallible light of inspiration! How joyful the intelligence to the honest but misguided, when the glad news of restitution shall reverberate in their prisons, and cause the captive exile to haste into light and liberty! Not only will the hopes and faith of men be set right in the times of restitution, but the earth itself will undergo an important change, and the heavenly bodies or planetary system. The islands shall flee, and continents be united, and the waters be restored to their proper bounds, no more to break over their proper barriers. The curse shall be clean removed from the earth, and the air shall become salubrious and delightful. The animal race shall cease from their animosity and virulence of temper. The lion and the lamb shall lie down together; and there shall nothing hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain. In short, all things that are now wrong shall be set right. Human life shall be prolonged: the infant shall die an hundred years old. The power and perpetuity of life will be secured to the ultimate extinction of death from off the earth. Death, the last enemy, will be conquered and swallowed up in victory. When every form and power of sin ceases, may we not expect that death will also cease? Death hath passed upon all men in that all have sinned. Sin is the sting of death and the cause of it. It is true that Jesus died, although he never sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; but he took upon him Adam's nature, and became sin for us, though he knew no sin. But it was not possible for him to be holden of death, or to see corruption, because he was holy.
When a holy seed shall be raised up from the loins of the righteous, which know no sin (which will be the case when the devil is bound), then their bodies will not see corruption. They shall not all sleep (or die), but they shall be changed. Those who partake of the curse of Adam will be changed in a moment, without knowing corruption; but the posterity of such as are changed will be the legitimate heirs of sanctified bodies, upon whom death has no conceivable claim. Death will not pass upon them because they have not sinned. Their bodies are generically spiritual and holy, like Christ's own most glorious body. Then will the seeds of death become extinguished from the human body, and man will stand as holy and pure as in his pristine creation, blooming with health, vigour, and immortality. Then he is prepared to hold intercourse with the heavens, and to reign with Christ on the earth.
You will perceive, sir, a difference in the liability of such persons as are born during the reign of righteousness, who do not sleep or die, and those who must die by reason of sin. The former know not the dominion or sting of sin, but are as trees of the Lord's planting—righteous. The latter must needs die and be resurrected. Jesus was the first fruits of them that slept. In the case of all others, corruption followed death; and a longer period must elapse before their bodies could be resurrected by reason of corruption. But Jesus was first and foremost to ripen into immortality. Corruptibility did not pertain to him, of course it was not necessarily pre-requisite to his resurrection and immortality; but with all others, down to the period when it is said that they should not sleep, corruption must precede the resurrection.—If the body of Jesus did not corrupt and moulder back to dust, then it is evident that he had substantially the same sort of corporal frame after his resurrection that he had before. The spirit resting upon him without measure, animated and resuscitated his body with no other material change than that of loss of blood. He shewed his disciples his body, and told them to handle him and see of what material it was: "a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." He shewed them, demonstratively, in his own person, a proper specimen of a living resurrected body. He shewed them that a spirit did not possess flesh and bones as a resurrected body did. He also proved another thing, viz.: that a resurrected body retains probably all the five senses common to a mortal body. He eat and drank with them, and shewed them that his person was identically the same as before his death.—Here there is a specimen of corporal immortality. In this person we may see what all resurrected bodies will be, for we shall be like him. Life and immortality are brought to light in the example of Christ's resurrected body. Such is the organization of a resurrected body, in consequence of the expulsion of the seeds of death, the last enemy, that decay and disease have no further power or influence.
The immediate resurrection of Jesus, after the lapse of only three days, was one of the greatest blessings and honours that could be conferred. In addition to all the faculties and powers which he possessed previous to his death, he also had those of an immortal being; instead of lingering a long time, with barely the circumscribed and limited powers and privileges of a disembodied spirit, he was blessed in body, soul, and spirit united. The key to innumerable lives and boundless dominions was given him on the third day after his death. It was his sole prerogative to say how long the dead should sleep before they should be resurrected. All the innumerable privileges of a resurrected body—privileges unspeakable and even unlawful to be uttered by reason of the hardness of men's hearts—were conferred upon him! He held the key of death and hell. No one could come forth from the tomb without his orders—none could felicitate his spirit by possessing his own body till Jesus should grant permission. His friends could all be called forth at his pleasure, and be reinstated on the earth as he had been, with all their friends and posterity after them, but no enemy could resuscitate the slumbering ashes of his tomb, till Jesus should speak the word and grant permission.