Continuous Revelation: A Parallel Between the Apostle Paul and the Prophet Joseph

"Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, ¶

For the good or evil side ; Some great cause — God's new Messiah, ¶

Offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand and ¶

The sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever ¶

'Twixt that darkness and that light." ¶

"We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God." The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands committed irrevocably to this position; the only safe position for a people to assume when they are dealing with that God who framed in the eternal heavens the Gospel of life and salvation, and decreed that it should be the means of man's progress and glory in time and in eternity. The neglect of this important truth has brought upon the human race the most serious calamities that it has ever suffered. ¶

During a recent indisposition, which confined me to my home for several days, I perused, not for the first time, the life of the Apostle Paul, reading along with it the epistles of St. Paul and the Acts of the Apostles. I was struck more forcefully than ever with the general similarity between the experiences of that great man, that mighty apostle of Jesus Christ, and the experiences of another great man, another mighty apostle of our Lord, namely, the Prophet Joseph Smith. I could almost imagine myself reading the history of the modern prophet while poring over the biography of the ancient apostle. True there are great differences between them. Joseph Smith was never a persecutor of the Church of God, nor a ¶

persecutor of any man or men, and when he closed his career he was slain by an irresponsible mob, while Paul was the victim of a judicial murder, a legal execution. Could Joseph have been slain legally, it would probably have been done in that way; but after he had been tried and acquitted many times, his enemies came to this conclusion: "The law cannot reach him, but powder and ball shall." ¶

Paul describes some of his experiences in these words : ¶

"Of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes save one; ¶

"Thrice was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned ; thrice I suffered shipwreck ; a night and a day I have been in the deep ; ¶

"In journeyings often ; in perils of waters ; in perils of robbers ; in perils by mine own countrymen; in perils by the heathen; in perils in the city ; in perils in the wilderness ; in perils in the sea ; in perils among false brethren ; ¶

"In weariness and painfulness; in watchings often ; in hunger and thirst ; in fastings often ; in cold and nakedness ; ¶

"Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches ; ¶

"Who is weak, and I am not weak ; who is offended, and I burn not?"— II Corinthians 2:24-29. ¶

The mind wearies and the heart aches while reading of Paul's tribulations ; and the same is true as to the sufferings of the Prophet Joseph. ¶

What was it all about? What was the cause of all these troubles and trials? Why were these men persecuted and finally put to death ? Paul was condemned by the Emperor Nero and beheaded at Rome in the year A. D. 66. Joseph, with ¶

his brother Hyrum, was shot to death at Carthage, Illinois, June 27, 1844. Paul was accused of a capital crime ; he was one of a body of people who were accused of setting fire to the great city of Rome. It was a false charge, but under it he was condemned and executed. Joseph was also accused falsely — charged with riot and treason — thrust into prison to await trial, and while there murdered by a mob that broke into the jail. These are the surface reasons for the death of those noble men. ¶

But what was the real reason? Deep down, fundamentally, what was it that brought about the death of the Apostle Paul and . the death of the Prophet Joseph? The fundamental reason was this : They were servants of God, and Satan wanted them out of the way. They stood as "lions in the path," and were building up God's kingdom in His own appointed way. Both these men had looked upon the face of Deity. Paul had been "caught up to the third heaven," Joseph to the "seventh heaven," and had there "heard things unlawful to be uttered." Each was a divinely com- . missioned preacher of the gospel at the opening of a new dispensation. ¶

What do we mean by a gospel dispensation ? We mean the opening of the heavens after a period of darkness and degeneracy, and the sending forth or dispensing of spiritual light for the salvation of mankind ; the sending forth also of divine authority, without which no man can be qualified to preach the gospel or administer its sacred ordinances. And these men, each in his time, stood as a proclaimer and an authorized minister of the restored gospel. Yes, the restored gospel : Paul preached no new gospel. There is only one gospel, as he told the Galatians : "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him who called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. Which is not another, but there be some who would trouble you and pervert the gospel of Christ ; but though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, * * * * than that which ye have received, let him be accursed." ¶

The gospel that Paul preached was the gospel that Adam had preached; the gospel that Enoch had preached ; that Noah had preached; that Abraham had preached; and that Moses had preached ; for we are told in modern revelation that Moses had the fulness of the Gospel, with the Melchisedek Priesthood, and that if Israel had been willing at that time, Moses would have sanctified them by the gospel, by the priesthood, and they as well as he would have been admitted into the presence of the Lord. But they would have none of it ; they were unworthy of it ; were not ready for it ; had not progressed to that degree that they could receive the fulness of the gospel ; and so it was taken, with Moses and the Melchisedek priesthood, and Israel was left for fifteen hundred years under the rule of the Aaronic or lesser priesthood, with the Mosaic law — the law of carnal commandments. These continued, in a more or less degenerate state, until the coming of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus Christ. ¶

What did Jesus ask of the Jews? Did he propose to destroy what they had that was true and good and wise and praiseworthy? No. "Think not I come to destroy, but to fulfill." This had reference to such observances as sacrifice, circumcision and the Passover; it did not affect the Ten Commandments, which are still in force, nor the Prophecies, many of which are yet to be fulfilled. He asked them to lay aside the obsolete, that which had fulfilled its purpose, and to accept of something better, even the fulness of the Gospel, to prepare them for which the Law of Moses had been given — "a school master," as Paul puts it, "to bring us to Christ." This was what the new dispensation meant : Come up higher ! "You have heard it said aforetime, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy ; but I say unto you, love your enemies, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect ; for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends His rain upon the just and upon the unjust." And they were "astonished at the doctrine ;" because for fifteen centuries they had been schooled under a lesser law, and were now required to take the higher law for their guidance : to stand upon a broader, grander platform, and practice the fulness of the religion of Jesus Christ. Only a few were willing to do this : "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not, but to such as did receive Him," both Jews and Gentiles, "gave He power to become the sons of God." And because the great mass of the Jewish race were unwilling to lay aside the obsolete law of Moses and accept the living law of the Christ, they rejected their Messiah, whom they had been expecting for centuries, crucified the Son of God, and persecuted His followers. The real ¶

reason for the martyrdom of such men as Paul and Peter was this: The world, while willing to believe, in part, what God had revealed, was not willing to accept a new revelation, for which the former revelation was intended to prepare them. ¶

The same was true when Joseph the Prophet announced the opening of the last dispensation. What did he demand of the world? Did he ask them to throw away anything that was good, that was useful, that was still in force and had been since the days of Moses and Paul? No; God's servants have never required this of mankind. Joseph called upon Christendom, not to turn its back upon the Redeemer, not to lose its faith in Jesus Christ, not to throw away anything that was precious, that was designed to endure, not having accomplished its mission. Like his divine Master he came not to destroy but to fulfill ; he called upon men to receive something better than they already possessed — even the restored Gospel, restored for the last time, in this the dispensation of the fulness of times, into which all other dispensations flow, as rivers into the ocean ; — the time of the second coming of the Son of God ; of the great Millennium of peace and good will — the morning of the glorious resurrection, when the dead in Christ shall rise to meet the Lord, as He comes with His Saints in the clouds of heaven to reign over His people. ¶

This is "Mormonism's" message to the world — it is not a message of war but of peace ; not a message of destruction but of conservation. It calls upon the Christian world and upon all men to abandon their lifeless, worn-out creeds ; to throw away all that is false and worthless— the doctrines of men and the ¶

doctrines of devils, and come back into the light, into the path that God has marked out. That is all; and this is what brought about the death of Joseph Smith — not the abatement of the Nauvoo Expositor, nor the calling out of the Legion to defend the city against mobs and despoilers. That is only the surface reason. The deep-rooted, fundamental reason is this : The world was unwilling, as ever, to give up its false traditions, to believe all that God had revealed, that it might be prepared for what He will yet reveal before man can be made perfect and the kingdom of God firmly established. The Christian world, however, is beginning to be conscious of its defects, is beginning to realize its need of new light and help from God. At the Autumnal Assembly of British Congregationalists, October, 1910, one of the topics under discussion was : "Is the Church Losing Her Hold Upon Men?" The Reverend David Walters, of Leeds, expressed himself as follows: "I have heard it said over and over again ; when you preachers of religion decide among yourselves what we ought to believe, we shall be ready to listen. It is not a mere excuse ; it is the expression of weariness with uncertainty. Different preachers not only contradict one another, but very few of us, if any, preach with that accent of assurance which carries conviction. We cannot make the people believe more, or more deeply and strongly, than, we do ourselves. We do not know where we are. Hesitation is never inspiring. I believe that we shall get out of this period of uncertainty, and that God will raise up in His own time, when conditions are favorable, another Paul, ¶

or Augustine, or Calvin, who will interpret for us our great gospel in terms that will be real and convincing to the modern mind. It will be a newer theology than anything we have yet had ; and yet it will be recognized as the old. The hearts of men will leap in response to it and will say : This is true ; this is what we have been waiting for ; and we shall all preach it with a consciousness that we are in line with all the faithful preachers of the past, and yet that we preach in language that is understood by the present generation." The Bishop of Liverpool, in a sermon delivered at the Holy Trinity Church, Southport, March 20, 1912, said that "the church at present seemed almost overmatched by the powers of darkness. Sometimes it seemed as if the darkness was gaining on the light. What was the cause of this strange paralysis that had befallen the church? He believed that the church needed to day a re-discovery of God; he believed that the church was weak today because God was so distant, so unreal, so dimly seen today. They saw the results of that dim vision of the distant God ; they saw on all sides unsettlement in the faith, slackness in the spiritual life, men losing their grip on those great and vital truths which made Christendom what it was. ¶

The only serious fault that can be found with such utterances as these is the fact that they predict something that has already come to pass. There has been "a re-discovery of God," and as the result, thousands, yea, tens, hundreds of thousands, are today worshiping the true and living God, who is no more like the dim and distant God of modern Christendom than heaven is like earth or substance like shadow. ¶

The new "Paul" has come; the new Gospel, which is the old, restored by heavenly messengers, interpreted by living oracles, to the joy of many honest souls is being preached again in all the world as a witness before the end comes. ¶

And history is repeating itself : The Jews were expecting a Messiah, but when He came they crucified Him, and still went on expecting him to come. The Christian world has put to death the prophets of God, sent as forerunners of the Messiah's second advent. What will be its attitude toward the One who sent them? Let us hope, for the honor of the human race, that when the glorified Christ has come, and is sitting upon His sovereign throne, with all nations before Him, there will be no Latter-day Saint, no Christian, no Jew, no Gentile, who, after gazing upon His glorious countenance, after meeting Him face to face, will still be looking forth for the time of his coming. ¶