Chapter XXX. The Bible but a Chapter of the Book of God

The " Good Shepherd." Footprints of the Christ. The Innumerable Testaments. The Universal Messiah.

There is a vastness in the subject of the ministration of Jesus to this continent, of which the simple narrative gives but a hint ; for it leads the mind at once out of the narrow theological rut, wherein the Christ has been made to represent but a local appearing and a local career in Judea, into the broadness of a Messianic effort, worthy in conception and adequate in purpose to meet our ideas of a truly Godlike endeavor.

In the enlarged and more glorious view of the Christ as a divine, persistent effort, manifesting- to various nations, through a multitude of incarnations during the mighty sweep of the ages of man's existence, appears indeed a plan and purpose worthy to be called the purpose of God.

In the light of legitimate conclusions from this circumstance of Jesus' ministration to his chosen in America, what, after all, is the Bible of the Jews, or the Bible of the Nephites, but each a chapter in the

stupendous Book of God ? And what are their testaments of Jesus but two episodes in the career of the universal Christ?

Now, indeed, have we a new idea in the world, for in this narrative ol his appearing to the Nephites have we not only confirmation of his previous ministry to the Jews, but by it is the path opened whereby we may trace the footprints of Messiah among many peoples, far removed from each other, in the scatterings of the human family.

Verily Christ hath a personal mission to his elect among all nations. His "sheep" shall hear his voice ; for though they be dispersed to the ends of the earth, he will visit them. In the north and the south and the east and the west the "Good Shepherd's " voice shall be heard, and his sheep shall know his voice, — "A stranger they will not follow."

Consider well these strange but charming tidings of Messiah, which Joseph, the Messenger, hath brought in these latter days. What may the future reveal ? Where may we not look for his footprints?

The subject of the "Lost Tribes" of Israel has long confronted and confounded Christendom. Ten and one-half tribes lost to the grasp of the Hebrew chronicler, but not lost to their Messiah. He told the Nephites, and has now told us through their testament, which has " spoken out of the dust," that he was going to all the tribes — the whole house of Israel — wherever scattered. And moreover, they should receive a command to write of his ministry among them, that their testaments might all come

forth in due time, to witness of him, of his ministry, and of his resurrection :

" And then will I gather them in from the four quarters of the earth ; and then will I fulfill the covenant which the Father hath made unto all the people of the house of Israel."

In tracing the vast theology revealed by Joseph we have come to see that his themes of Messiah extend beyond the landmarks of all precedent; that they do not originate with Nephi or Moroni; that they commenced, on earth, with Adam ; that they were familiar to the Gods in the eternities ; and that the archangels have published them over all lands where was to be found an Enoch, an Abraham, a Moses, a Paul, a Peter, a Nephi, a Morini, — indeed to all the high priests of heaven, who have come down as Messiah's ministers. Truly this is a revelation of Christ compared with which the "glad tidings of great joy," published from the pulpits of sectarian Christendom is as the lisping of suckling babes.

And where may not the footprints of the Christ be found? Was he Messiah of the Jews only who rejected and crucified him ? Away with such narrowness. " I am the light and the life of the world!'" And when the testaments of his manifold appearings shall come forth, behold a multitude of Bibles, — innumerable records of our Lord, — testaments that will not be as the dead letter of a few evangelists, in churches that are as much the sepulchres of the mummied past as are the catacombs of Egypt.

And now, in confirmation of Joseph's sweeping

J

60 LIFE OF JOSEPH THE PROPHET.

Messianic view, how stands to-day the record of Christ among the nations ?

There are supposed to have arisen in the world, at various periods of its history, something like fifty well-defined Christs of nations and special civilizations. Most of these were born before Jesus of Nazareth, and sixteen of them are said to have been crucified. The evidence of their personal appearing and ministry'* is overwhelming. Perhaps the most famous and best defined of these is Creeshna, the Saviour of India, who appeared twelve hundred years before Jesus. His disciples are many fold more numerous than the disciples of Jesus, and his doctrines, experience and death are so nearly identical with those of Jesus, that not only have the Hindoo philosophers affirmed that their Christ was the original of ours, but the claim has been conceded to them by nearly every rationalistic investigator in Christendom.

What shall we do with these facts ?

Let them remain untouched, as sacred things !

The temples of everlasting truth need no proppings !

The Master Architect has built them on the foundations of eternity !

In the stupendous sweep of Joseph's theology are gathered all these facts. He who is the last revelator of Messiah, and the special witness of Jesus as that Messiah, has shown that the foundations of the temple of truth were laid, not in India by Creeshna, not in China by Confucius, not in Persia by Zoroaster, but in heaven by the everlasting Father, — the Prince of Peace. — the Messiah of the Gods.

And these types of the Christ — the Universal M-essiah — are not copies of each other. It is neither finely nor broadly philosophical to so consider them. Joseph gave us the key to the whole mystery when he revealed a Universal Messiah in Jesus Christ, whose manifestation began before earth was. And all incongruity is swept away when we look upon Confucius, and Creeshna, and all the hosts of Christs that have blessed the world, as so many external types and incarnations of the Messianic purpose toward men.

Joseph's revelation of the pre-existence of the whole human family, with Jesus Christ at their head, before earth was conceived, is a wondrous comprehension of the subject in question. For instance, those "noble and great ones," those "souls that were good," were not all ordained to come through the loins of Abraham. Adam was not, nor Seth, nor Enoch, nor Noah, nor Melchisedek, nor Jared, and many others of Ancient America, who lived before Abraham. And it will be remembered that " One like unto God " stood in the midst of these "noble and great ones," and he said, "We will go down." And in their times and in their seasons they came, and revealed their Messiah to many nations ; but the world understood them not fully, nor the types which they manifested.

Moreover, Joseph has extended the Messianic subject, not only to the including of a host of nations, but a host of worlds !

In a poem, vast in compass of idea, if not strictly artistic in versification, he says :

"I, Joseph the Prophet, in spirit beheld,

And the eyes of the inner man truly did see Eternity stretched, in a vision from God, Of what was, and now is, and yet is to be :

"Those things which the Father ordained of old, Before the world was, or a system had run, — Through Jesus, the maker and Saviour of all, The Only Begotten (Messiah), His Son.

"And I heard a great voice, bearing record from heaven: He's the Saviour and Only Begotten of God: By him, of him, and through him the worlds were all made,- Even all that career in the heavens so broad :

" Whose inhabitants, too, from the first to the last, Are saved by the very same Saviour of ours."

Whatever may be said of the versification, the subject is infinitely vast. Certainly no Christian divine of popular fame ever made such a stupendous revelation of the Christ. Deeply hid in the labyrinths of an antiquity sweeping back to the Patriarch of all flesh, do we find the footprints of the Christ. So also do we find the footprints of the Universal Saviour, in the circles of worlds and systems,— "even all that career in the heavens" infinite.

And mark the conception which Enoch had of the Creator and Saviour:

"Were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, and millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of your creations ; and your curtains are stretched out still ; and yet you are there, and. your bosom is there. * * * You have taken Zion to your own bosom, from all your creations, from all eternity to all eternity."

How overwhelming in its infinite sublimity is the revelation that these, " from the first to the last, are saved by the very same Saviour of ours!"

Surely Joseph understood the mystery of God, for Jesus is the revelator of it, and the spirit of Jesus was in Joseph, else he had never penned those wondrous words : "You have taken Zion to your own bosom, from all your creations, from all eternity to all eternity."

And Jesus of Nazareth is not only our Saviour, but the Saviour of the Universe, and all the Universe shall confess of him, —

" Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints. * * *

" And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."