Moses was a believer before God spoke to him in the burning bush. John the Baptist, who introduced the christian dispensation, and was the harbinger of Christ, probably never saw any miracle, except at the descent of the dove, at the baptism of Jesus. "John wrought no miracle." Joseph Smith was a believer before the angel which John and the other prophets spoke of, ever visited him. Miracles may confirm the faith of such believers as have the Holy Ghost confirmed upon them, whereby they are able to distinguish between true and false miracles. To others they often prove a snare and a trap.
While miracles confirmed the Hebrews in the faith of God, miracles also confirmed the Egyptians in the faith of satan. Many who witnessed the miracles of Jesus were as keen for mobocracy and murder as the bloodiest. This parade about miracles, being designed to introduce christianity, and confirm and attest all genuine revelation, is a humbug that has always been started whenever a new revelation was given to man. The pious Jews insisted constantly that the disciples should prove their authority by miracles. It was about the first and last thing that they ever said to Jesus: WORK A MIRACLE! come down from the cross and we will believe. He told them, in language of the keenest rebuke, that they should not be seeking after "signs." He told them that it indicated a wicked and adulterous spirit to ask him to give them miraculous signs. The devil and devout Jews fairly made game of Christ and his disciples, because when they were asked to do miracles they refused. But still the devil, and many ministers and churches, continued to demand signs and miracles, and stormed and raged greatly because these men would never work miracles in a way to satisfy them.
These sagacious and pious adversaries of Jesus were always able to detect some flaw—some cunning artifice or trick of the devil—in whatever Christ or the apostles did (as they said). Now modern divines and churches, taking up this old cudgel against the saints, have even asked Latter-day Saints to drink a cup of poison. Drink it, says one—now drink it, or we will not believe you are sent of God. Aye, now we know you are not sent of God to preach! Forgetting that the first sign-seeker once said, if you are the Son of God, "cast thyself down from this pinnacle, for it is written, that he shall give his angels charge concerning thee."
Now, sir, if irony were admissible on a subject of this nature, I would tauntingly add—how satan did trap this impostor! He drove him into an extremity for pretending to work miracles; didn't he? But I forbear; let him that hath ears to hear, hear what the Spirit saith unto the sign-seekers!
It may seem marvellous to some if I should say that satan can work signs and wonders far surpassing the greatest knowledge of men. The power of satan has probably never been fully exhibited to men on the earth. The grand adversary of heaven and earth has not warred against even the throne of the Eternal God, without acquiring some acquaintance with those powers and keys of knowledge with which he has been baffled by the Almighty from the beginning. If believers had to contend only with flesh and blood, or mere men in mortal flesh, they might rejoice in the hope of a far more speedy victory; but, on the other hand, they have to contend against principalities and powers of a supernatural order. Spirits as much superior in power and cunning to the worst men in the flesh, as the full grown man is to the slender child. Men have acquired some knowledge of the laws that govern fire, air, and water; and some imperfect knowledge of the laws that govern minds, or the spirits of men; but the knowledge of fallen angels and outcast spirits, is sufficient to astonish and confound the wisest of men that are not inspired with the wisdom of God. The satanic powers have always excited the greatest wonders contemporaneous with the wonders wrought by the servants of God. In the days of Moses, and also of Jesus Christ, men were inspired by satan with more than mere human powers; and in this last dispensation, wicked men that yield themselves to become the willing instruments of unrighteousness to the devil, will again acquire skill in cunning and deceivable arts, whereby they will bring down fire from heaven, and confound all those who know not the laws and powers of spirits, and the extensive influence that the prince of the power of the air has over the natural elements. Men who do not need power from God to cast out devils, will find themselves made fast in his chains, beyond the power of extricating themselves. But while the saints have not power of themselves to detect the lying wonders of satan, and withstand them—yet, through faith, and the keys and gifts of revelation from God, they will be able to stand and overcome; and the power of God will be greater than the cunning of the devil. But sign-seekers and the enemy of new revelations will be arraigned under the banner of the father of lies, and believe a lie that they may be damned. Jesus found foul spirits and devils so thick, in his days, that he had occasion frequently to cast them out of persons, and also to empower others to cast out devils. Some instances are recorded where many of these fallen spirits took possession of a single person at one and the same time. No less than seven occupied one female. Now modern christianity must be highly favoured, if they are so much better than primitive saints, that they can escape the annoyance of these multiplied and troublesome spirits.
How is it, sir, that devils do not trouble modern churches, as they did the primitive saints? Are they done away too? Miracles and devils done away! The canon of the scriptures closed! miracles and devils ceased! Happy christianity; thy warfare has ceased,—thy troubles are ended! Blessed rest! Joyful reign of righteousness! As many ways to heaven now, as there are eyelets in a seive! Oh, brother, blush for thy theology, and for the doleful conclusions to which thy creeds have brought thee!
The reign of Satan, for near eighteen hundred years, has almost effaced every relic of Bible truth from the earth. Every thing that is valuable and powerful in the ancient system of prophets is done away, and the devil himself is supposed, by many, to be merely the evil passions of men. But, sir, the devil is not dead nor done away. But the gospel of apostles will rouse him up again; and knowing that his time is short, he will show his spite again on those bodies from which he shall be expelled by the apostolic priesthood, in choking, tearing, and casting them down to the ground. And who shall be able to stand, when deceptive miracles, and lying wonders far greater than have ever been known since the foundation of the world, shall be practised, and deceive many?
Now, sir, before I close this appeal, suffer me to allude to the intolerant and cruel persecution of the Saints, in Illinois. The nineteenth century, and the great republic of the United States of North America, must have the pages of its history blackened with the record of a persecution that classes with the bloody acts of Nero and Caligula. From fifteen to twenty thousand citizens of the United States were forced in an illegal, violent, and inhuman manner to forsake their homes and possessions in the state of Illinois, the greater part of them during the inclemency of the winter of 1846. A large and populous city of eleven thousand and thirty-five souls of men, women, and children, has been compulsorily evacuated, under the dread of inevitable massacre if they persisted to occupy their firesides and homes.
Continued acts of house-burning and mid-day assassinations, and midnight murder, and large gatherings of armed and lawless forces, with heavy pieces of artillery necessitated this numerous people to leave their flourishing city, merchandise, and farms, in the most inclement period of the year, for the purpose of self preservation.
This glaring act of expatriation, robbery, arson, and assassination, was not done in a corner. It did not occur among the barbarous and half civilized portions of the globe. It did not transpire in the dominions of the Ottoman, where the Coran and Islamism must father such inhuman deeds. It was not done in the jungles of Africa, where kidnapping and inhuman enslavement of men have called forth the repudiating censure of all nations. It was not done by clannish wandering Arabs, whose hands are proverbially against every man as a profession. Neither was it done in Papal dominions, or under the despotic sway of the sublime Porte or the autocrat of Russia.