The Claims, Doctrines, and Organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

RELIGIOUS FAITHS. IX. THE CLAIMS, DOCTRINES, AND ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS. BY B. H. ROBERTS. I. THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE CHURCH* TO THE CHRISTIAN SECTS. Under the general title, "Religious Faiths," the claims, doctrines, and organization of a number of the most import- ant divisions or churches of Christendom have been published in the Era. The churches that have been represented are the Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Episcopal, Presby- terian (two papers), Methodist Episcopal, Unitarian, Luth- eran, Congregational and the Baptist. With one exception the articles were written by those in full sympathy with the doctrines represented. The exception was in the case of the Greek Catholic Church which had no representative acces- *Since the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is recognized by its members as the only true Church cf Jesus Christ on earth, in this and the succeeding articles, it will be called 'J he Church, by which it will be understood as the true and only Church of Jesus Christ, in contradistinction to all other organizations claiming to be such church. The writer might go further and say that in such manner the term will be quite generally used in this publication, and he hopes the time will come when in all our literature the words, The Church, will always be known to- mean the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This in the interest of brevity.

666 IMPROVEMENT ERA . sible to us. That article was prepared by the Junior Editor of the Era, and every care was taken to state the claims and doctrines of the Greek Church fairly. For the rest the arti- cles have been written by representative ministers of the re- spective churches; chiefly by ministers residing in the State of Utah. We have given as full opportunity to these gentle- men to state the claims and doctrines of their respective churches as it was possible to accord them in the pages of our magazine. The time has now come to state the claims, and doctrines, and the organization of The Church, and we confess that the main object we have had in view from the commencement has been that side by side with what may be regarded, not only as a sympathetic, but authoritative statement of the claims and doctrines of the respective churches of Christendom, there might also be placed a similar statement of the claims and doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Among many other false charges that have been made against The Church has been that of shunning such oppor- tunity for comparison and contrast. It has been falsely alleged that "Mormonism" thrives only where ignorance is most profound; that its doctrines appeal to the baser passions of man, not to his reason, nor to his moral or spiritual nature. It is not the purpose of this writing to directly attempt the refutation of such false charges, only so far as a concise state- ment of our claims and doctrines will refute such misrepresen- tations. It might also be stated that so far as shunning opportunities for comparison and contrast with other re- ligions, whether pagan or so-called Christian, is concerned, it would be impossible to avoid it even if we had such an in- clination; but all the evidence demonstrates that the oppor- tunity for comparison and contrast referred to has always been sought instead of avoided. Such was the case in 1893 when The Church sought for representation in the "World's Parliament of Religions," held in the City of Chicago in that year, in connection with the World's Columbian Exposition. It is part of the history of that Parliament that after The Church sought for the opportunity to present a statement of her faith that it might stand there for comparison and contrast

RELIGIOUS FAITHS. 667 with the statements of all other religious faiths represented, such opportunity was denied, or granted in such a manner that no self-respecting religious body could accept it. Finally, it is hoped that this present opportunity for compari- son and contrast, deliberately sought and found, may tend to prove that the charge of shunning such opportunities is false; as it is also hoped that the statement of our claims and doctrines which is to follow will prove that our religion ap- peals to the reason, and also to the moral and spiritual nature of man. In order that the claims of The Church may be clearly understood it will be necessary to state its relationship to the Christian sects. It must be made clear why it has an exist- ence; what special reason it has for claiming the attention of mankind. Certainly one would think there are religions enough, divisions and sub-divisions enough within these religions to satisfy every possible conception of Deity and man's duty to him, and to each other, without a "new re- ligion" appearing upon the scene as late as 1830 to increase the confusion and distract the minds of men. And if there is no good reason for the coming of this "new faith," this "strange Church," then certainly it ought not to be countenanced. In order that the relationship we speak of may be clearly denned, it will be necessary to state the position occupied by the greater divisions, at least, of Christendom. Referring to the article on the doctrines and claims of the Roman Catholic Church, by the Rt. Rev. Lawrence Scanlan, bishop of Salt Lake City, it will be seen that for the Catholic Church he asserts the following: "She from the very beginning, from the ascension of Christ, up to the present, has always and everywhere asserted, taught and defended that she is that self-same, identical church which Christ himself built upon the rock, and against which, as he declared, the gates of hell could not prevail; and consequently to her, the Catholic Church, rightfully belongs all those marks, powers, properties and prerogatives which, as we have seen, characterized the Church of Christ. * * * It is, therefore, at least encouraging to humanity as well as creditable to Christ, that there has ever existed since his time a church publicly asserting and maintaining, very often at terrible cost to herself, that she is his church. If the Catholic Church be not that founded by Christ, then it will be extremely difficult, nay, impossible, to

008 IMPROVEMENT ERA. show that any other church is his, and consequently, his church must have failed and the gates of hell, contrary to his promise, must have prevailed against it * * * In conclusion, reason can find no logical standing ground between the Catholic Church and infidelity. If the Catholic Church is not what she asserts and has always asserted herself to be, then she falls, and with her must also fall the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Christ and the whole Christian system, for all these are logically and indissolubly connected and must stand or fall together, and there remains for us nothing but our own individual judgment, which naturally tends to and ultimately ends in infidelity." This clearly states the position of the Roman Catholic Church, and is susceptible to very great elaboration and proof, if that were necessary, from recent declarations made by Pope Leo XIII.* But the statement of Bishop Scanlan in relation to the position of his church is all-sufficient, and from his presentation we are to conclude: The Catholic Church of today is the very church organized by Christ and his apos- tles. It has existed without interruption for so much as an hour from that time until now. There has been a contin- uous perpetuation of divine authority from Peter to Leo XIII. There has been a continuous divine mission along this line of divine authority. There has been a develop- ment rather than a change of doctrine; that is, the present forms and ceremonies and the elaborate ritual of the Catholic Church is but the development of germs planted in the Church by Jesus and the apostles. The position of the Greek Catholic or Eastern Church is best stated by the Most Rev. Dionysios Latas, archbishop of Zante, whose words were quoted, in part, in the article on the Greek Church in number two of the Era, but given more in full here. The bishop outlining the propositions he expected to prove in his treatise on the Greek Church, named the fol- lowing as the third proposition: "The Greeks immediately after the coming of Christ undertook to de- velop Christendom and form and systematize the Christian Church, which is the Church of the East, the primitive church, which for this reason may be called the mother of Christian Churches, and consequently the church in which the first doctrines and the fundamental Christian truths are kept *The writer has in mind Leo's encyclical on the reunion of the Christ- ian Church issued in June, 1896; and the encyclical concerning Anglican Orders from the same authority in September, 1896.

RELIGIOUS FAITHS. 669 in store pure and chaste, 'from which all good was to originate in this world, and on which the happiness of the nations is consequently based." After an elaborate discourse tending to prove this, he con- cludes: "It suffices me to say that no one of you, I think, will deny in the presence of these historical documents that the original Christian Church was the Greek Church, which for this reason may be called the mother of Christian Churches * * * Lastly the Greek Christian Church may be the treasury, as one may say, of the sound Christian doctrines, of the infallible evangelical truths, in other words it may be the ark which bears the spirit- ual manna and feeds all those who wish to come to it in order to obtain from it the ideas and unmistakable reasonings on every Christian doctrine, on every evangelical truth, and on every ecclesiastical tradition." This clearly proves that the Greek Catholic Church dis- putes the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to being the primitive Church of the Messiah, and demands that honor for herself. Another great division of Christendom claims to be, if not the only and true successor of the primitive Church, founded by Christ and his Apostles, at least a branch of that church. This is the Anglican Episcopal Church, represented in our symposium by Rev. J. B. Halsey. Speaking of the conception of the church held by various divisions of Christen- dom he says of the Episcopal Church: She believes the church is a divine institution—not merely a philo- sophy or a theory but an Institution—that it has a body as well as a soul, and that this body is ' 'born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." There are three branches of the Christian Church in the world today holding this latter theory, the Greek Church * * * the Roman Catholic Church * * * and the Anglican Church, which claims to be a branch of the one holy Catholic (i. e. universal) and Apostolic Church founded by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The Angli- can Church also claims to be peculiarly the church for English speaking people. The Reverend gentleman disclaims that this church had its origin in the revolt of Henry VIII. from the authority of the pope; he claims for it apostolic origin and an independence as a church before the coming of the missionaries from the pope, who did not arrive in Britain until toward the close of the sixth century. For the rest of Protestant Christendom it is enough to

670 IMPROVEMENT ERA. say that none of those churches can establish any claim to ex- istence beyond the period of the "Reformation" in the 16th century, and to the men with whom they originated; the Lu- theran Church, to Martain Luther; the Presbyterian, to Cal- vin; the Methodist, to Wesley, and so on. Even the Greek Church cannot deny that once—for several hundred years — it was in communion with the See of Rome, but became sep- arated. The same is true of the Anglican Episcopal Church, and this fact somewhat destroys the force of the claims made by these two great divisions of Christendom to either being the original church or a branch of the original church. So that setting aside all details concerning the matter, the general situation concerning this broken aDd disunited Christendom may be broadly stated thus: Jesus of Nazareth and the apostles whom he called to the ministry established a church, of which the Roman Catholic claims to be the successor. All other churches, including both the Greek and the Angli- can Churches, believe that in time abuses crept into the church; that there were changes in the sacraments, departures from the spirit of Christ's church government, and other alterations in doctrines or morals which justified them in their several acts of separation from this church. Indeed, the Anglican Church herself, speaking authoritatively, says that "Laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages and sects and de- grees have been drowned in abominable idolatry, most detested by God and damnable to man,/or eight hundredyears and more!" Wesley also clearly states the apostate condition of the church in the early Christian centuries by saying that the reason why the spiritual gifts, so abundant in the primitive church, were not to be found in later times was because "the love of many, almost all Christians, so-called, was waxed cold, and Christians had no more of the spirit of Christ than the other heathens. The Son of Man, when he came to examine his church, could hardly find faith upon earth;" which apostate condition it is reasonable to presume justified in the mind of Mr. Wesley, the necessity of estab- lishing the church which bears his name. The Wesleyan representative who writes for the Era's symposium, Rev. Alfred H. Henry, says of the Reformation of the 1 6th century:

RELIGIOUS FAITHS. 671 "The Reformation was a protest. A protest against unscriptural and unchristian innovations and practices, a protest against the immorality of those who claimed to be vicegerents of God, and representatives of Christ; a protest against the usurpation of temporal power on the part of the church, and the secularizing tendencies that followed in its train; and finally a protest against that tyranny which forbade a man the right to think for himself, the inalienable and God-given birthright that belongs to every being endowed with reason, and deprived of which, man became nothing but an ignorant, superstitious and pliant tool of a cunning priesthood. The Reformation did not advance any nezv ideas with reference to reli- gion, it simply returned to the simple, majestic, sufficient truth as taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. It swept away the unsightly, false and worth- less additions that had been made as the result of man's cunning and in- genuity and uncovered the solid foundation stones as laid by the Master himself. " Such then is the condition of divided Christendom: The great Church of Rome, claiming to be the literal and only successor of the Church of Christ; the Greek Church feebly disputing that claim and asserting it for herself, but standing really as a church once united but now separated from Rome; the Anglican Episcopal Church, while not asserting that she is the only successor to the primitive Christian church, claims, according to her representative in this symposium, that "she is a branch of the one holy Catholic (i. e. universal) and Apostolic Church, founded by the Lord Jesus Christ himself," and yet authoritatively asserting in her homilies that there has been a universal apostacy from the religion of Jesus Christ extending through several centuries, and further stand- ing in the position of a church once united, but now separ- ated, and, we may say, excommunicated from Rome. For the rest of the churches, which came into existence either di- rectly or indirectly as a result of the "Reformation," they stand in the position of asserting that men departed from the doctrines, spirit and morality of the Christian religion, to which there has been a return through the "Reformation" of the 1 6th century, or through the subsequent "Reformations" which have brought their respective "churches" into existence. With these schisms and questions of difference existing between the parts of this divided "Christendom" we have nothing further to do at present than to state those conditions,

672 IMPROVEMENT ERA . that the relationship of The Church to them may be made clear. That position may best be set forth by quoting the words of the Lord Jesus Christ to Joseph Smith on the occasion of the youthful prophet's first great vision and revelation in an- swer to his earnest prayer to know which of all the religions was true, which of the contending sects was the acknowl- edged church of Christ—which he must join. The answer of the Lord to these earnest inquiries was: He was to join none of them; they were all wrong; their creeds were an abomination in his sight; the professors thereof were corrupt; they drew near to the Lord with their lips, but their hearts were far from him; they taught for doctrine the command- ments of men, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. Subsequently, and in fulfillment of promises then made, further revelations were given, including divine appointment and commission to the Prophet Joseph Smith and others to organize the church, and teach the true gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world. It will thus be seen that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not a new church; that the religion it teaches is not a new religion. But men having departed from the religion of Jesus Christ, having transgressed its laws, changed its ordinances, or sacraments, and broken its coven- ant, a new dispensation of that true religion, including divine authority to teach it and administer its sacraments through which salvation is brought to man, became necessary The Church, then, the "Mormon Church" as it is improperly called, and the religion it teaches, did not come into existence simply because the instruments who founded it had some dif- ferent conception of church government than some other re- ligious teachers; some different view of the manner in which, or the purpose for which baptism should be administered. It did not originate simply because those who founded it had different views concerning the nature or personality of God, or the relationship of man to him, or differences of opinion about his decrees, or the manner in which the salvation of man was to be effected, whether solely by the grace of God or

REHGIOUS FAITHS. 673 a union of the grace of God and the works of man. Its ex- istence rests upon no such paltry excuse. It came into being because there was a stern, absolute necessity for its existence. Because all the world had wandered from God and religious teachers were without authority from him. Because the gos- pel of Jesus Christ had been taken from the earth; because the church of Christ had been destroyed from among men, and the only way the one or the other could be re-established on earth was by a re- opening of the heavens and a restora- tion of the religion and Church of Jesus Christ by a new re- velation from God. This position contradicts the position of all the sects of Christendom. In effect it denies the claim of the Church of Rome that she is the "self- same, identical church which Christ himself built upon the rock," and holds her to be an apostate church—one that has departed from the faith—as taught by the Master and his apostles. A church without divine authority, without commission, whose adminis- tration of sacraments are vain, and whose splendid ceremonies of worship are but as the splendid forms of wor- ship to be found in the temples of Buddha. While agreeing with the great Church of England that there has been a complete apostacy from the Christian re- ligion, that laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages and sects and degrees have been drowned in abominable idola- try,most detested by God and damnable to man, for eight hund- red years and more" (and this is the logical position of all the Protestant churches—else why are they separated from Rome?)—while agreeing with this it denies that there is any method by which men could recover from the effects of this universal apostasy, regain divine authority and a divine commission to preach the gospel and administer its sacraments, except through anew revelation from God, which would restore the gospel, recommission men to act in the name of God, and re-establish the church of Christ. To be the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, then, is the claim which "Mormonism" makes for itself. The re-estab- lished Church of Jesus Christ, or The Church, is the claim made for what men call the "Mormon Church." We know 50

674 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the claim is a bold one. It is our pride that it is so. If its claim was less, it would have no right to exist. And while it is bold, and likely to give offense, and has often given offense to those wedded by tradition and the social forces which cluster in time about religious institutions, it is a strong claim, one easily maintained, and one well worthy the attention of mankind. It challenges the position of all religions and sects. It calls for a re-examination of the foundations upon which they all rest. The church bears a message from God to all men, to the so-called Christian as well as to the Jew and the Pagan. It proclaims the whole world in sin and calls upon all men to repent. It is a message, however, fraught with good will to mankind and its mission is one of peace and love. Its object the moral, temporal, and spiritual up-lifting of mankind. Its achievements are to be brought about by teach- ing the truth, by persuasion, by reason, by patience, by long suffering, by love unfeigned. Truth is its only weapon; love its shield. In a land where religious freedom is guaranteed to all men of whatsoever religious faith, or of no religious faith, it hopes to win its bloodless but glorious victories for the Lord Jesus Christ, by preparing the way for his reign on earth in glory. Our limited space does not permit extensive argument on the questions involved by reason of the attitude of The Church to the "Christian sects," and yet mention at least should be made of the groups of facts and the lines of argu- ment by which the position of The Church may be reasonably maintained. That the Church of Christ, founded by Jesus and the apostles, was destroyed in the earth; that men departed from the gospel, changed and mis-applied its sacraments or ordi- nances, and lost divine authority, thus making a new dispen- sation of that gospel necessary, is proven: — I. By the effect of the early persecutions of the Christ- ians which constantly aimed at the destruction of the leading spirits of the church, and which did practically destroy them, and left but weak and timorous men to grapple with the in- flowing heresies and changes that surged in upon the church and resulted in a departure from the religion of Christ: —