Jesus the
Christ
Chapter 40
- The Long Night of Apostasy
For over
seventeen hundred years on the eastern hemisphere, and for more than fourteen
centuries on the western, there appears to have been silence between the
heavens and the earth. Of direct revelation from God to man during this
long interval, we have no authentic record. As already shown, the period of
apostolic ministry on the eastern continent probably terminated before the dawn
of the second century of the Christian era. The passing of the apostles was
followed by the rapid development of a universal apostasy as had been foreseen
and predicted.
Note:
Direct revelation by prophets ended with John the Baptist.
“The law and the prophets were until
John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is
pressing into it.” Luke 16:16
In the
accomplishment of this great falling away, external and internal causes
cooperated. Among the disintegrating forces acting from without, the most
effective was the persistent persecution to which the saints were subjected,
incident to both Judaistic and pagan opposition. Vast
numbers who had professed membership and many who had been officers in the
ministry deserted the Church; while a few were stimulated to greater zeal under
the scourge of persecution. The general effect of opposition from the
outside—of external causes of decline in faith and works considered as a
whole—was the defection of individuals, resulting in a widespread apostasy from the Church. But immeasurably more
serious was the result of internal dissension, schism and disruption, whereby
an absolute apostasy of the Church from
the way and word of God was brought about.
Note: The
LDS church has apostasied from the Word of God.
Simon Peter answered and
said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and
said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in
heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this
rock (confession) I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall
not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:16-18
Judaism was
the earliest oppressor of Christianity, and became the instigator and abettor
of the succeeding atrocities incident to pagan persecution. Open and vigorous
hostility of the Roman powers against the Christian Church became general
during the reign of Nero, (beginning about A.D. 64), and
continued with occasional respites of a few months or even years at a time to
the close of Diocletian’s reign (about A.D. 305). The
inhuman cruelty and savage barbarity to which were subjected those who dared
profess the name of Christ during these centuries of heathen domination are
matters of accepted history. When Constantine the Great came to the throne
in the first quarter of the fourth century, a radical change was inaugurated in
the attitude of the state toward the church. The emperor straightway made the
so-called Christianity of the time the religion of his realm; and zealous
devotion to the church became the surest recommendation to imperial favor. But
the church was already in great measure an apostate institution and even in
crude outline of organization and service bore but remote resemblance to the
Church of Jesus Christ, founded by the Savior and builded
through the instrumentality of the apostles. Whatever vestiges of genuine
Christianity may have possibly survived in the church before, were buried
beyond the sight of man by the abuses that followed the elevation of the
churchly organization to secular favor through the decree of Constantine. The
emperor, even though unbaptized, made himself the head of the church, and
priestly office was more sought after than military rank or state preferment.
The spirit of apostasy, by which the church had become permeated before
Constantine threw about it the mantle of imperial protection and emblazoned it
with the insignia of state, now was roused to increased activity as the leaven
of Satan’s own culture flourished under the conditions most favorable for such
fungoid growth.
Note:
Sincere confession of Jesus Christ has existed for 2,000 years regardless of
rulers.
The ecclesiastical use of
Latin symbolum for "creed"—in the
sense of "a distinctive mark of Christians", from the sense of
Greek σύμβολον, "a sign or token used for
identification"—first occurs around the middle of the 3rd century, in the
correspondence of St. Cyprian and St. Firmilian, the latter in particular speaking of
the trinitarian formula as the "Symbol of
the Trinity",
and recognizing it as an integral part of the rite of baptism. The
term Symbolum Apostolicum appears
for the first time in a letter, probably written by Ambrose,
from a Council in Milan to Pope Siricius in about AD 390 "Let
them give credit to the Symbol of the Apostles, which the Roman Church has
always kept and preserved undefiled". Ambrose's term is here
referring to the Old Roman Creed, the immediate predecessor of
what is now known as the "Apostle's Creed". The narrative of
this creed having been jointly created by the Apostles, with each of the twelve
contributing one of twelve articles, was already current at that time.
Wikipedia Encyclopedia
The bishop
of Rome had already asserted supremacy over his fellows in the episcopate; but
when the emperor made Byzantium his capital, and renamed it in his own honor,
Constantinople, the bishop of that city claimed equality with the Roman
pontiff. The claim was contested; the ensuing dissension divided the church;
and the disruption has persisted until the present day, as is evidenced by the
existing distinction between the Roman Catholic and the Greek Catholic
churches.
Note:
Sincere confession of Jesus Christ has existed for 2,000 years regardless of
rulers.
Apostle’s Creed: I believe in God the Father
almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and believe in Jesus Christ, his only
Son, our Lord, who was conceived from the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin
Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried,
descended into hell, rose again from the dead on the third day, ascended into
heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father, who will come again to
judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic
Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of
the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Note: The Apostle’s Creed is based on the Word
of God.
The Roman
pontiff exercised secular as well as spiritual authority; and in the eleventh
century arrogated to himself the title of Pope, signifying Father, in the sense of paternal ruler in all
things. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the temporal authority of
the pope was superior to that of kings and emperors; and the Roman church
became the despotic potentate of nations, and an autocrat above all secular
states. Yet this church, reeking with the stench of worldly ambition and lust
of dominance, audaciously claimed to be the Church established by Him who
affirmed: “My kingdom is not of this world.” The arrogant assumptions of the
Church of Rome were not less extravagant in spiritual than in secular
administration. In her loudly asserted control over the spiritual destinies of
the souls of men, she blasphemously pretended to forgive or retain individual
sins, and to inflict or remit penalties both on earth and beyond the grave. She
sold permission to commit sin and bartered for gold charters of indulgent
forgiveness for sins already done. Her pope, proclaiming himself the vicar of
God, sat in state to judge as God Himself; and by such blasphemy fulfilled the
prophecy of Paul following his warning in relation to the awful conditions
antecedent to the second coming of the Christ: “Let no man deceive you by any
means: for that day shall not come, except there come
a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
Who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is
God.”
Note: The
return of Jesus Christ will not happen until after the anti-christ
has been revealed.
Now,
brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him,
we ask you, not to be
soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as
if from us, as though the day of Christ had
come. Let no one
deceive you by any means; for that Day will
not come unless
the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts
himself above
all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple
of God, showing himself that he is God. 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
In her
unrestrained abandon to the license of arrogated authority, the Church of Rome
hesitated not to transgress the law of God, change the ordinances essential to
salvation, and ruthlessly break the everlasting covenant, thereby defiling the
earth even as Isaiah had foretold. She altered the ordinance of baptism,
destroying its symbolism and associating with it imitations of pagan rites; she
corrupted the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and befouled the doctrine thereof
by the vagary of transubstantiation; she
assumed to apply the merits of the righteous to the forgiveness of the sinner
in the unscriptural and wholly repellent dogma of supererogation; she promoted idolatry in most seductive
and pernicious forms; she penalized the study of the holy scriptures by the
people at large; she enjoined an unnatural state of celibacy upon her clergy;
she revelled in unholy union with the theories and
sophistries of men, and so adulterated the simple doctrines of the gospel of
Christ as to produce a creed rank with superstition and heresy; she promulgated
such perverted doctrines regarding the human body as to make the divinely
formed tabernacle of flesh appear as a thing fit only to be tortured and
contemned; she proclaimed it an act of virtue insuring rich reward to lie and
deceive if thereby her own interests might be subserved; and she so thoroughly
departed from the original plan of Church organization as to make of herself a
spectacle of ornate display, fabricated by the caprice of man.
Note:
Brigham Young promoted murder as love.
This is loving our neighbor as ourselves; if he
needs help, help him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill
his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it. Any of you who
understand the principles of eternity, if you have sinned a sin requiring the
shedding of blood, except the sin unto death, would not be satisfied nor rest
until your blood should be spilled, that you might gain that salvation you
desire. That is the way to love mankind. Journal of Discourses, Brigham Young,
February 8, 1857, page 220.
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
The most
important of the internal causes by which the apostasy of the Primitive Church
was brought about may be thus summarized: (1) The corrupting of the simple
doctrines of the gospel of Christ by admixture with so-called philosophic
systems. (2) Unauthorized additions to the prescribed rites of the Church
and the introduction of vital alterations in essential ordinances.
(3) Unauthorized changes in Church organization and government.
Note:
Brigham Young promoted murder as love.
The Mountain Meadows
Massacre was a series of attacks which resulted in the mass murder of
120 members of the Baker–Fancher emigrant wagon train.
The massacre occurred September 7–11, 1857 at Mountain Meadows in
southern Utah,
and was perpetrated by Mormon settlers
belonging to the Utah Territorial Militia (officially called the Nauvoo Legion), together
with some Southern Paiute Native Americans. Today,
historians attribute the massacre to a combination of factors, including war hysteria about
a possible invasion of Mormon territory and Mormon teachings against
outsiders, which were part of the Mormon Reformation period. Scholars debate
whether senior Mormon leadership, including Brigham Young,
directly instigated the massacre or if responsibility lay only with the local
leaders in southern Utah. Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
Under the
tyrannous repression incident to usurped and unrighteous domination by the Roman
church, civilization was retarded and for centuries was practically halted in
its course. The period of retrogression is known in history as the Dark Ages.
The fifteenth century witnessed the movement known as the Renaissance or
Revival of Learning; there was a general significantly rapid awakening among
men, and a determined effort to shake off the stupor of indolence and ignorance
was manifest throughout the civilized world. By historians and philosophers the revival has been regarded as an unconscious
and spontaneous prompting of the “spirit of the times”; it was a development
predetermined in the Mind of God to illumine the benighted minds of men in
preparation for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which was
appointed to be accomplished some centuries later.
Note: The
Dark Ages ended with the study of the Bible.
The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of
intellectual and cultural revival of literature, arts, and scriptural studies
during the late 8th and 9th centuries, mostly during the reigns of Charlemagne and
Frankish rulers.
To address the problems of illiteracy among clergy and court scribes,
Charlemagne founded schools and attracted the most learned men from all of
Europe to his court. Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
With the
renewal of intellectual activity and effort in material betterment, there came,
as a natural and inevitable accompaniment, protest and revolt against the
ecclesiastical tyranny of the age. The Albigenses in France had risen in
insurrection against churchly despotism during the thirteenth century; and in
the fourteenth, John Wickliffe of Oxford University had boldly denounced the
corruption of the Roman church and clergy, and particularly the restrictions
imposed by the papal hierarchy on the popular study of the scriptures.
Wickliffe gave to the world a version of the Holy Bible in English. These
manifestations of independent belief and action the papal church sought to
repress and punish by force. The Albigenses had been subjected to inhuman cruelties
and unrestrained slaughter. Wickliffe was the subject of severe and persistent
persecution; and though he died in his bed the vindictiveness of the Roman
church was unsated until she had caused his body to be exhumed and burned and
the ashes scattered abroad. John Huss and Jerome of Prague were prominent on
the continent of Europe in agitation against papal despotism, and both fell
martyrs to the cause. Though the church had become apostate to the core, there
were not lacking men brave of heart and righteous of soul, ready to give their
lives to the furtherance of spiritual emancipation.
Note: The
Dark Ages ended with the study of the Bible.
The best-known representative of
the Bohemian Reformation is Jan Hus. He was an influential university teacher and a
popular preacher in Bethlehem Chapel in
the Old Town of Prague. The chapel was founded already in 1391 in the spirit of
the nascent Bohemian Reformation. It was intended solely for sermons in Czech
and it could admit 3,000 people. Jan Hus and his friends (e. g. Jacob of Mies)
were skeptical about the idea of conciliarism which called for a church reform
from above via cardinals and theologians. For them the
cardinals and theologians were bearers of the same corruption as the papacy
itself. Hus believed that the head of the Church was Jesus Christ rather than
the pope.
In some issues they were inspired by the ideas of an Oxford theologian
and philosopher John Wycliffe. It can be seen in their cooperation with the
secular power which supported them. Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
A notable
revolt against the papacy occurred in the sixteenth century, and is known as
the Reformation. This movement was begun in 1517 by Martin Luther, a German
monk; and it spread so rapidly as soon to involve the whole domain of popedom.
Formal protests against the despotism of the papal church
were formulated by the representatives of certain German principalities and
other delegates at a diet or general council held at Spires A.D. 1529; and the reformers were thenceforth known
as Protestants. An independent church was proposed by
John, Elector of Saxony, a constitution for which was prepared at his instance
by Luther and his colleague, Melanchthon. The Protestants were discordant.
Being devoid of divine authority to guide them in matters of church
organization and doctrine, they followed the diverse ways of men, and were rent
within while assailed from without. The Roman church, confronted by determined
opponents, hesitated at no extreme of cruelty. The court of the Inquisition,
which had been established in the latter part of the fifteenth century under
the infamously sacrilegious name of the “Holy Office,” became intoxicated with
the lust of barbarous cruelty in the century of the Reformation, and inflicted
indescribable tortures on persons secretly accused of heresy.
Note: The
Dark Ages ended with the study of the Bible.
Luther began by criticising
the sale of indulgences, insisting that the Pope had no authority
over purgatory and
that the Treasury of Merit had no foundation in
the Bible. The Reformation
developed further to include a distinction between Law and Gospel,
a complete reliance on Scripture as the only source of proper doctrine (sola scriptura)
and the belief that faith in Jesus is the only way to receive God's
pardon for sin (sola fide) rather than good works. Although this is generally
considered a Protestant belief, a similar formulation was taught by Molinist and Jansenist Catholics. Wikipedia
Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
In the
early stages of the Reformation instigated by Luther, the king of England,
Henry VIII, declared himself a supporter of the pope, and was rewarded by a papal
bestowal of the distinguishing title “Defender of the Faith.” Within a few
years, this same British sovereign was excommunicated from the Roman church,
because of impatient disregard of the pope’s authority in the matter of Henry’s
desire to divorce Queen Catherine so that he could marry one of her maids. The
British parliament, in 1534, passed the Act of Supremacy, by which the nation
was declared free from all allegiance to papal authority. By Act of Parliament
the king was made the head of the church within his own dominions. Thus was born the Church of England, a direct result of the
licentious amours of a debauched and infamous king. With blasphemous
indifference to the absence of divine commission, with no semblance of priestly
succession, an adulterous sovereign created a church, provided therein a
“priesthood” of his own, and proclaimed himself supreme administrator in all matters spiritual.
Note: The
Dark Ages ended with the study of the Bible.
The Reformation was a triumph of
literacy and the new printing press. Luther's
translation of the Bible into German was a decisive moment in
the spread of literacy, and stimulated as well the printing and distribution of
religious books and pamphlets. From 1517 onward, religious pamphlets flooded
Germany and much of Europe. By 1530, over 10,000 publications are known, with a
total of ten million copies. The Reformation was thus a media revolution.
Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
With the
conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism in Great Britain the student of
history is familiar. Suffice it here to say that the mutual hatred of the two
contending sects, the zeal of their respective adherents, their professed love
of God and devotion to Christ’s service, were chiefly signalized by the sword,
the ax, and the stake. Revelling in the realization
of at least a partial emancipation from the tyranny of priestcraft, men and
nations debauched their newly acquired liberty of thought, speech, and action,
in a riot of abhorrent excess. The mis-called Age of Reason, and the atheistical abominations culminating in the French
Revolution stand as ineffaceable testimony of what man may become when glorying
in his denial of God.
Note: The
Great Awakening saved innumerable people.
George Whitfield, was an Anglican cleric
and evangelist who was one of the founders of Methodism and
the evangelical movement. The Church of England did not assign him
a pulpit,
so he began preaching in parks and fields in England on his own, reaching out
to people who normally did not attend church. To Whitefield "the
gospel message was so critically important that he felt compelled to use all
earthly means to get the word out." Thanks to widespread
dissemination of print media, perhaps half of all colonists eventually heard
about, read about, or read something written by Whitefield. He employed print
systematically, sending advance men to put up broadsides and distribute handbills announcing
his sermons. He also arranged to have his sermons published. Whitefield was a
"passionate preacher" who often "shed tears". Underlying
this was his conviction that genuine religion "engaged the heart, not just
the head". Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
Is it to be
wondered at, that from the sixteenth century onward, churches of man’s
contriving have multiplied with phenomenal rapidity? Churches and churchly
organizations professing Christianity as their creed have come to be numbered
by hundreds. On every side is heard in this day, “Lo, here is Christ” or “Lo,
there.” There are sects named from the circumstances of their origin—as the
Church of England; others after their famous founders or promoters—as Lutheran,
Calvinist, Wesleyan; some are known by peculiarities of doctrine or plan of
administration—as Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregationalist; but down
to the third decade of the nineteenth century there was no church on earth
affirming name or title as the Church of Jesus Christ. The only organization
called a church existing at that time and venturing to assert claim to
authority by succession was the Catholic church, which for centuries had been
apostate and wholly bereft of divine authority or recognition. If the “mother
church” be without a valid priesthood, and devoid of spiritual power, how can
her offspring derive from her the right to officiate in the things of God? Who
would dare to affirm that man can originate a priesthood which God is bound to
honor and acknowledge? Granted that men may and do create among themselves
societies, associations, sects, and even “churches” if they choose so to
designate their organizations; granted that they may prescribe rules, formulate
laws, and devise plans of operation, discipline, and government, and that all
such laws, rules, and schemes of administration are binding upon those who
assume membership—granted all these rights and powers—whence can such human
institutions derive the authority of the Holy Priesthood, without which there
can be no Church of Christ?
Note: The
Great Awakening led to Biblical movements.
Evangelicalism, evangelical
Christianity, or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide
trans-denominational movement within Protestant
Christianity that maintains the belief that the essence of
the Gospel consists
of the doctrine of salvation by grace alone,
solely through faith in Jesus’s atonement. Evangelicals believe in the
centrality of the conversion or "born again"
experience in receiving salvation, in the authority of the Bible as God's revelation to humanity, and in spreading the
Christian message. The movement has long had a presence in the Anglosphere before
spreading further afield in the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries. Wikipedia
Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
The
apostate condition of Christendom has been frankly admitted by many eminent and
conscientious representatives of the several churches, and by churches as
institutions. Even the Church of England acknowledges the awful fact in her
official declaration of degeneracy, as set forth in the “Homily Against Peril of Idolatry,” in these
words: “So that laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and
degrees of men, women, and children of whole Christendom—an horrible and most
dreadful thing to think—have been at once drowned in abominable idolatry; of
all other vices most detested of God, and most damnable to man; and that by the
space of eight hundred years and more.”
Note: The
Great Awakening led to Biblical preachers such as Charles Spurgeon.
I would propose that the subject of the
ministry of this house, as long as this platform shall stand, and as long as
this house shall be frequented by worshippers, shall be the person of Jesus
Christ. I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist, although I claim to be
rather a Calvinist according to Calvin, than after the modern debased fashion.
I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist. You have there (pointing to the
baptistry) substantial evidence that I am not ashamed of that ordinance of our
Lord Jesus Christ; but if I am asked to say what is my creed, I think I must
reply: "It is Jesus Christ." My venerable predecessor, Dr. Gill, has
left a body of divinity admirable and excellent in its way; but the body of
divinity to which I would pin and bind myself for ever, God helping me, is not
his system of divinity or any other human treatise, but Christ Jesus, who is
the sum and substance of the gospel; who is in himself all theology, the
incarnation of every precious truth, the all-glorious personal embodiment of
the way, the truth, and the life. – The kernel of Spurgeon's first sermon at
the Tabernacle. Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
Let it not
be concluded that through the night of the universal apostasy, long and dark as
it was, God had forgotten the world. Mankind had not been left wholly to
itself. The Spirit of God was operative so far as the unbelief of men
permitted. John the apostle, and the Three Nephite disciples, were
ministering among men, though unknown. But through the centuries of spiritual
darkness men lived and died without the administration of a contemporary
apostle, prophet, elder, bishop, priest, teacher, or deacon. Whatever of the
form of Godliness existed in the churches of human establishment was destitute
of divine power. The time foreseen by the inspired apostle had fully
come—mankind in general refused to endure sound doctrine, but, having itching
ears, did they heap to themselves teachers, after their own lusts, and verily
had they turned away their ears from the truth to follow after fables. The
first quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed the cumulative fulfilment of
the conditions predicted through the prophet Amos: “Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of
bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And they
shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall
run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and
shall not find it.”
Note: The
salvation message has always been present.
Conversionism, or belief
in the necessity of being "born again", has been a constant
theme of evangelicalism since its beginnings. To evangelicals, the central
message of the gospel is justification by faith in Christ and repentance,
or turning away, from sin.
Conversion differentiates the Christian from the non-Christian, and the change
in life it leads to is marked by both a rejection of sin and a corresponding
personal holiness of life. A conversion experience can be
emotional, including grief and sorrow for sin followed by great relief at
receiving forgiveness. The stress on conversion differentiates evangelicalism
from other forms of Protestantism by the associated belief that an assurance will accompany conversion. Wikipedia
Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
Throughout
the period of apostasy the windows of heaven had been
shut toward the world, so as to preclude all direct revelation from God, and
particularly any personal ministration or theophany of the Christ. Mankind had
ceased to know God; and had invested the utterances of prophets and apostles of
old, who had known Him, with a pall of mystery and fancy, so that the True and
the Living God was no longer believed to exist; but in His place the sectaries
had tried to conceive of an incomprehensible being, devoid of “body, parts, or
passions,” an immaterial nothing.
Note: The
salvation message has always been present.
Biblicism is reverence for
the Bible and high regard for biblical authority. All evangelicals believe
in biblical inspiration, though they disagree over
how this inspiration should be defined. Many evangelicals believe in biblical inerrancy, while other evangelicals
believe in biblical infallibility. Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
But it had
been determined in the councils of heaven, that after many centuries of
benighted ignorance the world should be illumined anew by the light of truth.
Through the operation of the genius of intelligence, which is the Spirit of
Truth, the soul of the race had been undergoing a preparation, like unto the
deep plowing of a field, for the planting of the gospel afresh. The principle
of the mariner’s compass was revealed by the Spirit; the material embodiment
thereof was invented by man; and by its aid the unknown oceans were explored.
Toward the end of the fifteenth century Columbus was led by the inspiration of
God to the discovery of the New World, whereon dwelt the degenerate posterity
of Lehi, a dark-skinned remnant of the house of Israel—the American Indians. In
due time the good ships Mayflower and Speedwell brought to the western world the Pilgrim
Fathers, as the vanguard of a host escaping from exile and seeking a new home wherein they could worship according to the dictates of
their consciences. The coming of Columbus and the later immigration of the
Puritan Pilgrims had been predicted nearly six hundred years before Christ;
their respective missions had been as truly appointed unto them as has been the
sending of any prophet with a message to deliver and a work to do. The war
between the American Colonies and the Mother Country, and the victorious issue
thereof in the emancipation of the American nation once and forever from
monarchial rule, had been foretold as further steps in the preparation for the
restoration of the gospel. Time was allowed for the establishment of a stable
government, for the raising up of men chosen and inspired to frame and
promulgate the Constitution of the United States, which promises to every man a
full measure of political and religious freedom. It was not meet that the
precious seed of the restored gospel be thrown upon unplowed soil, hardened by
intolerance, and fit to produce only thorns of bigotry and rank weeds of mental
and spiritual serfdom. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the embodiment of liberty;
it is the truth that shall make free every man and every nation who will accept
and obey its precepts.
Note: The
salvation message is only about Jesus Christ.
Crucicentrism is the centrality
that evangelicals give to the Atonement, the saving death and the resurrection of
Jesus, that offers forgiveness of sins and new life. This is understood
most commonly in terms of a substitutionary atonement, in which Christ died as
a substitute for sinful humanity by taking on himself the guilt and punishment
for sin. Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
At the appointed
time, the Eternal Father and His Son Jesus the Christ appeared to man upon the
earth, and inaugurated the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times.
Note: The
Eternal Father never appeared to Joseph Smith.
No one has seen God at any time. The only
begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. John
1:18
Note: Don’t
be deceived by the LDS church.
Notes to
Chapter 40
1.
Cessation of Revelation on the Western Hemisphere.—“The
eastern world had lost this knowledge of the Lord earlier than the western
hemisphere. Upon the land of North America, four hundred years after the birth
of our Savior and Master, there stood at least one man who knew the Lord God
Almighty as a distinct personality, a Being capable of communicating Himself to
man. That man was Moroni, the son of Mormon, whose testimony abides now and
must abide through all the ages to come.”—George Q. Cannon, Life of Joseph Smith, p. 21. See Moroni 10:27–34.
2.
Results of the Great Apostasy Divinely Overruled for Eventual Good.—The thoughtful student
cannot fail to see in the progress of the great apostasy and its results the
existence of an overruling power operating toward eventual good, however
mysterious its methods. The heartrending persecutions to which the saints were
subjected in the early centuries of our era, the anguish, the torture, the
bloodshed incurred in defense of the testimony of Christ, the rise of an
apostate church, blighting the intellect and leading captive the souls of
men—all these dread conditions were foreknown to the Lord. While we cannot say
or believe that such exhibitions of human depravity and blasphemy of heart were
in accordance with the divine will, certainly God willed to permit full scope
to the free agency of man, in the exercise of which agency some won the
martyr’s crown, and others filled the flagon of their iniquity to overflowing.
Not less marked is the divine permission in the revolts and rebellions, in the
revolutions and reformations, that developed in opposition to the darkening
influence of the apostate church. Wickliffe and Huss, Luther and Melanchthon,
Zwingli and Calvin, Henry VIII in his arrogant assumption of priestly
authority, John Knox in Scotland, Roger Williams in America—these and a host of
others builded better than they knew, in that their
efforts laid in part the foundation of the structure of religious freedom and
liberty of conscience—and this in preparation for the restoration of the gospel
as had been divinely predicted.—The Great Apostasy, 10:19, 20.
3.
Declaration of a General Apostasy by the Church of England.—The Book of Homilies, from which the quotation given
in the text is taken, was published about the middle of the sixteenth century.
The official proclamation of a universal apostasy was made prominently current,
for the Homilies were “appointed to be read in churches” in lieu of sermons
under certain conditions. In the statement cited, the Church of England
solemnly avers that a state of apostasy affecting all ages, sects, and degrees
throughout whole Christendom, had prevailed for eight hundred years prior to the
establishment of the church making the declaration. That this affirmation
remains effective today, as both confession and profession of the Church of
England, appears from the fact that the homily “Against Peril of Idolatry” and
certain other homilies are specifically ratified and endorsed, and withal
prescribed “to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly
that they may be understanded of the people.” See “Articles of Religion” xxxv,
in current issues of Church of England, Book of Common Prayer.
4.
The “Creed of Athanasius.”—At the Council of Nice,
convoked by the emperor, Constantine, A.D. 325, a formal
statement of belief concerning the Godhead was adopted. Later a modification
was issued, known as the “Creed of Athanasius,” and though the authorship is
questioned, the creed has a place in the ritual of some of the Protestant
churches. No more conclusive evidence that men had ceased to know God need be
adduced than the Athanasian Creed. As confessed by the Church of England in
this day, and as published in the official ritual (see Prayer Book) “The Creed of Saint Athanasius” is this:
“We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the
Persons: nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father,
another of the Son: and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the Glory equal, the
Majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son: and such is the
Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate: and the Holy Ghost uncreate.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible: and the Holy Ghost
incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal: and the Holy Ghost
eternal. And yet they are not three eternals: but one eternal. As also there
are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated:
but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. So likewise
the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty: and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet
they are not three Almighties: but one Almighty. So
the Father is God, the Son is God: and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are
not three Gods: but one God. So likewise the Father is
Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords: but one
Lord.”
Then
follows this strange confession of what is at once required by “Christian
verity,” and forbidden by the “Catholick Religion”:
“For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity: to acknowledge every
Person by himself to be God and Lord; so are we forbidden by the Catholick Religion: to say, There
be three Gods, or three Lords.”
5.
The Mission of Columbus and Its Results.—Unto
Nephi, son of Lehi, was shown the future of his people, including the
degeneracy of a branch thereof, afterward known as Lamanites and in modern
times as American Indians. The coming of a man from among the Gentiles, across
the deep waters, was revealed in such plainness as to positively identify that
man with Columbus; and the coming of other Gentiles to this land, out of
captivity, is equally explicit. The revelation is thus recorded by Nephi to
whom it was given: “And it came to pass that I looked and beheld many waters;
and they divided the Gentiles from the seed of my brethren. And it came to pass
that the angel said unto me, Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy
brethren. And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles who was separated
from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of
God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the
many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.
And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other
Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.” (1 Nephi 13:10–13).
The establishment of a great Gentile nation on the American continent, the
subjugation of the Lamanites or Indians, the war between the newly established
nation and Great Britain, or “their mother Gentiles,” and the victorious
outcome of that struggle for independence, are set forth with equal clearness
in the same chapter.