Mormonism, a Heresy

A Sermon preached in the parish church of Hillbsrough, on Sunday, the 30th of October, l842, with an appendix of illustrations and proofs, by the venerable Walter B. Mant, M. A., Archdeacon of Down.

We have been led to notice this publication, not from any intrinsic merit which it has, nor in order to prevent any evil effects to the cause of truth that might arise from its circulation, but simply because of the authority from which it springs. Indeed, we rejoice to see such an effort made to put down the principles we advocate; it argues little for the party from whom it proceeds, and we assure the reverend writer that we consider it so innoxious [innocuous], so harmless in its effects upon us, that we would rather be engaged in its diffusion than in the suppression of it.

The author sets out with a eulogy on the principle of union of religion-the necessity of it-and of the existence of an acknowledged authority to teach the principles of truth; he then laments the introduction of the principles of dissent in the following manner:-

The evil is as old as the very early days of Christ's own apostles: lamented by St. Paul, in his epistles to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to the Thessalonians, the to bishops, Timothy and Titus; by St. John, in the cases of those who denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh, and of Diotrephes, "who prated against" the apostles "with malicious words;" and by St. Jude. It was evidenced in the cases of the various heretics, who, in the four first centuries, were allowed to vex the church by errors concerning the Son of God and the Holy Ghost!-the Arians, Sabellians, and the like-and called forth the energies of the holy bishops and ministers of the time, St. Athanasiua and others, to confute their false doctrines: in the superstitions which for centuries overspread the truth under the dominion of Rome: and in the varieties of dissent, heresy, and schism which have distracted us since the reformation

in the rejection of episcopal government by the followers of Calvin and Knox, and of the sacraments and other outward ordinances by the Quakers; in the unscriptural dogmas and practices of the Anabaptists, and the God-denying heresy of Socinius; and more lately in the schism originated in the very bosom of the church by the disciples of Wesley; wherever the mischievous principle has been acted upon, that every man is competent to form his own creed, and that every man has a right to do so; a principle avowed by some, and acted on more or less by all denominations of dissent, and tending at once to subvert the unity of the church and corrupt the purity of the faith.

Now we perfectly agree with the venerable Archdeacon in the necessity of there being a legitimate and acknowledged priesthood in the church of Christ, in order that we may have "one Lord, one faith, and one baptism." It is peculiarly in this principle that the Saints of the last days rejoice, that when all men were bewildered and in darkness-when the vision of all was covered and had become as the words of a book that was sealed, that then the Lord again sent his holy messengers from on high to renew the covenant which man had broken, and gave them authority to administer his holy ordinances as in the beginning. Therefore, on the necessity of the existence and authority of the holy priesthood we fully agree with the reverend gentleman, but with regard to believing that his church possesses that authority, we beg leave politely to disagree; yet with regard to his remarks upon the authors of dissent, as quoted above, we have no feeling that harmonizes with his censure. However we might condemn dissenters from the principles of truth when dispensed by legal authority, yet we can, not unite with him in the condemnation of those characters whose names he has quoted, because in the day in which they lived, we recognize no people having the authority of God as connected with the priesthood. On the other hand we admire such characters, and say they were men in their respective days, that rose up to call in question an assumed authority, and that they did right to dispute the claims of a hierarchy which, we make bold to say, the Lord recognized not as a priesthood after the order of his glorified Son.

"A heresy, springing from such a source, and of the most pernicious tendency, has, within a few months, appeared among us; and, by the insidious manner in which its errors have been propagated, has, I lament to say, led away several from the truth, and has staggered, at least, if it has not shaken, the faith of others.-Having its origin in the United States of America, a land which the Almighty in His wisdom, perhaps also in His wrath, has permitted to present the sole example of a country in which the godless sentiment is avowed and acted on, that a state has nothing to do with religion, and that all forms of faith are equally right, or equally wrong; having for its founders two miserable men, who at the time they commenced their wicked project, could be looked on as no other than unbaptised heathens, having by their own confession, up to that time, been members of no religious sect, and having never been baptised [baptized], and whose first proceeding was a sacrilegious mockery of God's ordinances, by plunging one another in water; producing in support of its pretended claims, a book, which is to be put upon a level with the word of God in the Old and New Testaments, and of which it is doubtful whether the clumsiness of the forgery or the awfulness of the blasphemy it contains, is most remarkable; having such a origin, such founders, and such support, this sect of Latter Day heretics (for I will not prostitute the holy name they have assumed by applying it to them,) hath spread from the hot bed of errors and schisms where it arose, and hath begun to pollute the members of the catholic and apostolic Church of England and Ireland with its pestilential doctrines."

In a word, we deny his first assertion that the heresy of Mormonism has sprung from such a source. We disclaim it with our strongest feelings, as having sprung from a spirit of dissent; but we assert that those "two miserable men" were, through the teachings of heavenly messengers, made the instruments, in the hands of God, of commencing this glorious work of the last days; and that America, instead of being under the wrath of heaven in this respect, has been favored as the second birth-place of those glorious principles which shall renovate the world, and effectuate by their power the salvation or destruction of the present generation of men. And these principles having thus sprung from this hot bed of errors and schisms, have begun to pollute the members of the catholic and apostolic Church of England and Ireland with their pestilential doctrines. How lamentable! We should have almost supposed that a church so "apostolical" would have been impregnable to the attacks of America schism; we should have thought that the members of so a pure a church would have enjoyed the privilege of knowing whether the doctrines were of men or of God. We would, if we deemed it at all necessary, enter into the subject of examining the claims of the reverend gentleman's church to the title of apostolic, but we think it would really be a work of supererogation; for taking

the New Testament accounts as the model of an Apostolical church, and then turning to contemplate the sect to which the writer belongs, we feel certain it will be sufficient to

"Look on this picture and on that."

"The leaders of this sect," says the archdeacon, "profess to believe in God the Eternal Father, and in his Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost; and so far as this is expressed it is the truth, but it may not be discovered by many who read or hear it, that it is not the whole truth."

With regard to our views of the Godhead they are before the public, being lately published in the STAR, in the fifth lecture on faith; and those views are not the results of human ingenuity or fanciful theory, but what the Lord has been pleased to reveal. And in this matter we rejoice that we have not been left to speculate with the unholy zeal of modern religionists on this important subject.

"They have blasphemed," continues the writer, "the holy name of Jesus, by recording of him ;things which he never did, and words which he never spoke, and making the belief of these lies necessary to man's salvation." "They have arrogantly pronounced, that for sixteen or seventeen hundred years there has been no true church of Christ extant upon the earth; that all the doctrines of the gospel have been corrupted, and the ordinances of our holy religion all polluted; and they have assumed to themselves to be sent by the power of the Most High, thus taking the name of the Lord in vain, by running when he hath not sent them."

The last quotations we have made are as miserable a piece of mere assertion as we ever read; we trust we have recorded nothing of the sayings of Jesus contrary to the principles of eternal truth, and we believe we are a little more jealous of the honor and authority of Jesus than the reverend gentleman, and are more willing to teach, and more ready to obey those precepts of the Redeemer, recorded in that book which he acknowledges, than either his reverence or any members of his "church apostolic."

What we make necessary to man's salvation is what the Lord Jesus Christ has taught us and declared necessary and we would warn the writer himself to give heed to his teachings, and receiving them in humility, obey them, or his present dignified standing in Babylon will not avail him in the day of trial.

That the doctrines of the gospel have been corrupted, and the ordinances of the house of the Lord have been changed, we not only assret [assert] but confidently maintain, and feel no hesiation [hesitation] in stating that the protestant church has not been far behind her ancient mother in committing this great sin for which "the curse shall devour the earth, and the inhabitants thereof shall be burnt up and few men left."-We would faithfully warn the reverend gentleman to bring his own church to the standard of the New Testament, and let him take heed that he be not one of those priests that shall be overwhelmed in the general destruction, when it shall be "as with priest so with the people."

"We have assumed to ourselves," says he, "to be sent by the power of God, thus taking the name of our Lord in vain, by running when he hath not sent them." This is a mere begging of the question. We assume nothing; but if the work with which we are connected have a divine origin, we cannot cease to know it, we dare not deny it. Who could have persuaded the apostle Paul that the work of the Lord was not true; could any one have made him believe that on his road to Damascus, he had not seen a light and heard a voice? So we rejoice to say it is with the Saints of God in the last days, manifold are his mercies, numerous are his blessings, and no power of man or satan can compel us to cease to know and confess the truths of the work of the lord.

"They have erred from the 'one faith,' once for all delivered unto the saints, and caused to err those who follow them. Thus they profess a belief that 'men will be punished for their own sins only, not for Adam's transgression,' which is the old heresy of Pelagius, condemned by the Church Catholic as soon as it arose, and by our church in the ninth article of religion: being contrary to the doctrine of the scriptures, that 'by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,' and that 'death,' the 'wages of sin,' 'reigned even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; that is to say, over infants, who having done no actual sin, are yet subject to the inborn taint which they inherit.' And therefore, the church, according to scriptures, has ever held, what these heretics deny, that infants equally need purification and remission of this original sin, as grown persons need remission of actual offences [offenses]."

Of all doctrines that ever were ushered into the world or suggested by satan, surely that of the liability of infants who die, to go into punishment to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire, is certainly the most horrible that can possibly be conceived, and it is the greatest outrage upon the principles of truth that ever was propounded unto man; and yet such is the doctrine advocated by this reverend divine. The gentleman quotes the passage that "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,'

and that 'death,' the 'wages of sin,' 'reigned over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; that is to say, over infants." We grant this, that in consequence of the fall, that death has reigned over all, but not the second death; no; 'for as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.' Thus has the atoning sacrifice of our glorious Redeemer removed the curse of original sin from all the posterity of Adam, and man only becomes accountable unto God for what, as a rational intelligence he can be hold responsible for. And we would remind the rev gentleman, that whether infants have undergone the ordinance of his church or not, which we repeat is a solemn mockery before God, that of such is the kingdom of heaven.-By the fall of Adam his whole race were brought under condemnation, but through the fall of man obtained a knowledge of good and evil.-The atonement of Jesus has been amply sufficient to remove from a fallen world this original condemnation, and leaving us in the possession of the knowledge we have obtained of good and evil, we now according to our condition stand or fall before him.

But to assert that infants, who are not responsible agents, required an ordinance of baptism to obtain remission, is to slight the atonement of Jesus and tacitly declare that it is not sufficiently efficacious to cancel the misfortune of being borne [born] of sinful parents. Were we to suppose for a moment that his absurd doctrine were true, then let us suppose again that one of his order was unable to arrive in time to administer this ordinance, and the little infant expires before the performance of this rite, what are the consequences according to his doctrine? The child is gone to hell, to never-ending punishment. We will quote his words and say, 'hear this ye parents! Your lovely babe, over whose dying throes you hung with such anxiety, according to the horrible doctrine of this divine, is lost forever, because it has not undergone the 'solemn mockery' of infant sprinkling!!!

"The heresies in doctrine and errors in practice into which these teachers would lead their deluded followers, are supported, however, by a claim to the possession of supernatural powers; to a very brief consideration of which pretence [pretense] I request your attention. The powers claimed are three-fold,-the gift of tongues and their interpretation; of prophecy, visions, and the like; for miracles: and all these pretences [pretenses] are borrowed from other sects, which, even within our own memory, have been permitted to try our steadfastness in the faith."

We can afford the rev. gentleman to speak slightingly of the gifts of the spirit of God, for we know that his reiterated opinions can never alter truth, and that they who have been raised from beds of sickness by the ordinances of God's house, will be no less grateful to the Lord for his mercies, because Archdeacon Mant is pleased to deny them,. The ear that has been closed for a quarter of a century, and that is now open to listen to the word of life, will not close again in silence, because the fact may be questioned, neither will the eyes that were once veiled in

"Such black night as saw not with the day

All round it,'

but which have since been opened by the power of God, cease to sparkle with a grateful lustre [luster[ as they drink in the radiant beams of heaven. Let the learned divine close his eyes to the word of God, or shut his ears to the testimony of the Saints of God, he cannot mar their bliss, he cannot make one joy the less. We have extended our remarks already too much, but we cannot close without another quotation from the sermon.

"In the next place: avoid all arguments with those who have embraced any of these strange notions. Be assured, the devil will be ready enough to make them seem plausible and fair to you, and you have no right to expect God will support you in a contest or argument into which you needlessly throw yourselves. Avoid these false teachers, and their disciples, and be satisfied to 'hold fast the form of sound words' delivered by the Church of Christ through the agency of rightly ordained ministers.

Lastly: beware of that curious disposition, that itchingness of the ears, which leads men in these days to run after preaching wherever it is to be found-which is still seeking some new thing; and that false liberality, or rather irregular freedom which leads men, for the sake of hearing this or that preacher, to run as indifferently to the dissenting meeting, or to the Methodist preaching house, or to any other denomination of sectaries, as they would go to church' to be edified by the prayers, instructed by the doctrine, and nourished by the sacraments administered there by the duly ordained ministers of Christ,"

We think our last extract needs no comment and will venture, notwithstanding the gentleman's counter advice, to conclude with the words of Paul, "Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good."