[208] From an article published in the “Frontier Guardian,” then edited by the Apostle Orson Hyde.
I. “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.”—Of the thousand sects and systems that have used this venerable Kalmah or formula of Christian faith, none have interpreted it more peculiarly than the Mormons.
The First Person is a perfected man, once a dweller upon earth: advancing in intelligence and power, he became such that in comparison with man he may be called the Infinite. Mr. Joseph Smith, in his last sermon preached at Nauvoo, thus develops his remarkable anthropomorphosis: “First, God himself, who sits enthroned in yonder heavens, is a man like one of yourselves; that is the great secret. If the veil was rent to-day, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and upholds all things by his power, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion and image of God; Adam received instruction, walked, talked, and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.”
The Second Person is the “Son Jesus Christ,” the material offspring of the First by the Virgin Mary, who was duly married, after betrothal by the angel Gabriel, to the Eternal Father, on the plains of Palestine: the Holy Babe was the “tabernacle” prepared for and assumed by the Spirit Son. The Son is the Creator: when in the material spirit still, he took of the “unformed chaotic matter element which had an existence from the time God had, and in which dwells all the glory,” and formed and peopled this planetary world, which he afterward redeemed. He is to be worshiped as Lord of all, heir of the Father in power, creation, and dominion. “What did Jesus do?” “Why, I do the things that I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. I saw my Father work out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same.” (“Last Sermon,” p. 61.)
The Paraclete has already been described: it differs from the other two Persons in being a merely spirit-material soul or existence without a “tabernacle.” Thus the Mormons mingle with a Trinity a very distinct, though not a conflicting Duality.
The Mormon Godhead may be illustrated by a council composed of three men, possessing equal wisdom, knowledge, and truth, together with equal qualifications in every other respect: each would be a separate person or a substance distinct from the other two, and yet the three would compose but one body. This body consists of three, viz., Eloheim, Jehovah, and Michael, which is Adam. From the Christian apostles and the Apocalypse, the Mormons deduce the dogma of gods in an ad infinitum ascending series: man, however, must limit his obedience to the last heavenly Father and Son revealed by the Holy Spirit. And as God is perfect man, so is perfect man God: any individual, by faith and obedience, can, as the Brahminical faith asserts, rise to the position of a deity, until, attaining the power of forming a planet, peopling, redeeming it, and sitting there enthroned in everlasting power. The Mormons, like the Moslems, believe that—“things of earth, customs, and ceremonies, being patterned after things in the Spirit world and future abodes of the gods”—there are inferior glories and pleasures for “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” In the eternal heavens there are three great mansions, the celestial of the sun, the celestial of the stars, and the terrestrial: the other state is called the Lake of Fire, or the Burning Caldron.
II. “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgressions.”—Yet the Mormons hold the Son to be necessary to reconcile fallen man to the Father and the Holy Spirit, to sanctify and purify the affections of men, and also to dwell in them as a teacher of truth. “The spiritual substance of man was formed in the beginning after the same image as the spiritual substance of the persons of the Father and the Son. Previously to the fall, these spirits were all moral in their nature; by the fall the spirits of men lost their morality and virtue, but not their essence—that continued the same: by the new birth man regains his morality and virtue, while the essence remains the same; it now becomes a moral, virtuous image, whereas the same substance was before immoral. Paul (1 Cor., xv., 49), in speaking of the resurrection, says, ‘As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly!’” Unlike the more advanced faiths—El Islam and Unitarianism—the Mormons retain the doctrine of a “fall.” It contrasts strangely with their dogma of man’s perfectibility. They have not attempted to steer clear between the Scylla and Charybdis of predestination and free will.
III. “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.”—After Adam had fallen from his primal purity, a council was held in heaven to debate how man should be saved or redeemed from the state of evil. The elder brother Lucifer, son of the morning, the bright star in glory, and the leader of heavenly hosts, declared, when appealed to, that he would save man in his sins. But he who is emphatically called “the Son”—Christ—answered, I will save him from his sins. Lucifer, the “archangel ruined,” rebelled, was cast out from the planetary abode of the Father, and became, under the name of Satan, the great ruler and “head devil” of evil spirits, and of the baser sort of imps and succubi. I can not say whether in their mysteries the Mormons represent Sathanas as the handsome man of El Islam, or the horned, tailed, and cloven-footed monster which monkish Europe fashioned probably after pagan Pan.
IV. “We believe these ordinances are, 1st. Faith in the Lord Jesus; 2d. Repentance; 3d. Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; 4th. Laying on of hands by the gift of the Holy Spirit; 5th. The Lord’s Supper.”—Faith is not only the “evidence of things that appear not, the substance of things to be hoped for,” the first principle of action, and an exercise of the will in intelligent beings toward accomplishing holy works and purposes, with a view to celestial glory; it is also the source of power both on earth and in heaven. We find that by faith God created the world (Heb., xi., 3); and, “take this principle or attribute away from the Deity, he would cease to exist.” (“Lectures on Faith,” sec. 1.) “Faith, then, is the first great governing principle which has power, dominion, and authority over all things.” (Ibid.) Of the second ordinance, it was revealed, “Say nothing but repentance unto this generation” (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 37); a very comprehensive and valuable rule to those under whom their brethren must sit. As regards the third, the child succeeds its parent in moral responsibility at eight years of age, when it must be baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen,” into the Church. Infant baptism is regarded as a Bida’at or innovation—a sin. Baptism by immersion—any other method being considered a vain ceremony—remits our peccata, but it must be repeated after each mortal act. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 2, par. 21.) Vicarious baptism for the dead is founded upon St. Paul’s saying concerning the fathers, that they can not without us be made perfect, and “otherwise what shall they do that are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not again at all? Why are they then baptized for them?” (1 Cor., xv., 29.) Immersion in water is the symbol of death, emersion of the resurrection, and the baptismal font is a simile of the grave; but baptism for the dead is acceptable only in the Temple. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 103.) There being a probationary state while the earth endures in the Spirit world—the purgatorial doctrine of Virgil and others—the dead can by proxy “fulfill all righteousness;” and the Saints are enjoined that “the greatest responsibility that God has laid upon us is to look after our dead;” so Mr. Joseph Smith, in his “Last Sermon,” says, “Every man who has got a friend in the eternal world can save him, unless he has committed the unpardonable sin; so you can see how you can be a Savior.” A man baptized for deceased relations traces back the line to one that held the priesthood among his progenitors, who, being a saint, will take the place of sponsor, and relieve him of farther responsibility. All thus admitted to salvation will be added at the resurrection to the household of the baptized person, who will reign as a patriarch forever, his rank and power among kingly spirits being proportioned to his wives and his children—adopted or begotten—and his baptizées. The fourth ordinance, or laying on of hands by the water’s side, is a perfection of the regeneration begun in baptism, and whereby the recipient is promoted to the Melchisedek priesthood; the order was revealed, or rather renewed, in 1831. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 66.) The fifth ordinance, touching the Eucharist, is instituted “in remembrance of the Lord Jesus:” the elder or priest administers it kneeling with the Church, praying and blessing first the bread and then the wine. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 2.) The second element was changed by a direct revelation (Sept., 1830), saying, “You shall not purchase wine nor strong drink of your enemies,” since which time water has been substituted. Mormons, young and old, equally take the sacrament every Sabbath.
V. “We believe that man must be called of God by inspiration, and by laying on of hands from those who are duly commissioned to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.”—The Mormons hold to a regular apostolic succession. “Every elder” (which includes the apostles), “priest, teacher, or deacon, is to be ordained according to the gifts and callings of God unto him; and he is to be ordained by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the one who ordains him.”