The Articles of Faith Part 28

[710] I Cor. xiv, 1-9.

[711] Amos iii, 7.

[712] I Kings xviii, 36, 37; Rom. xi, 2, 3; James v, 16-18; Rev.

xi, 6.

=21.= No special ordination in the priesthood is essential to man's receiving the gift of prophecy; bearers of the Melchizedek order, Adam, Noah, Moses, and a mult.i.tude of others were truly prophets, but not more truly so than were many who exercised the Aaronic functions only--as for example most of the Old Testament priests subsequent to the time of Moses, and John the Baptist.[713] The ministrations of the prophetesses Miriam[714] and Deborah[715] show that this gift may be possessed by women also. In the time of Samuel, the prophets were organized into a special order, to aid their purposes of study and improvement.[716]

[713] Matt. xi, 8-10.

[714] Exo. xv, 20.

[715] Jud. iv, 4.

[716] See Note 3.

=22.= In the present dispensation, this great gift is enjoyed in a fulness equal to that of any preceding time. The Lord's will concerning present duties is made known to His people through the mouths of prophets; and events of great import are fore-told.[717] The very fact of the present existence and growing condition of the Church is an undeniable testimony of the power and reliability of modern prophecy. The Latter-day Saints const.i.tute a body of witnesses, numbering hundreds of thousands, to the effect of this, one of the great gifts of G.o.d.

[717] Doc. and Cov. i, 4; lx.x.xvii.

=23. Revelation= is the means through which the will of G.o.d is declared directly and in fulness to man. Under circ.u.mstances best suiting the Divine purposes, through the dreams of sleep or in waking visions of the mind, by voices without visional appearance, or by actual manifestations of the Holy Presence before the eye, G.o.d makes known His designs, and charges His chosen vessels to bear the sacred messages so imparted. Under the influence of inspiration, or its more potent manifestation--revelation, man's mind is enlightened, and his energies quickened to the accomplishment of wonders in the work of human progress; touched with a spark from the heavenly altar, the inspired instrument cherishes the holy fire within his soul, and imparts it to others as he may be led to do; he is the channel through which the will of G.o.d is conveyed. The words of him who speaks by revelation in its highest form, are not his own; they are the words of G.o.d Himself; the mortal mouth-piece is but the trusted conveyer of these heavenly messages. With the authoritative, "Thus saith the Lord," the revelator delivers the burden intrusted to his care.

=24.= The Lord strictly observes the principles of order and propriety in giving revelation to His servants. Though it is the privilege of any person to live so as to merit this gift in the affairs of his special calling, only those appointed and ordained to the offices of presidency are to be revelators to the people at large. Concerning the President of the Church, who at the time of the revelation here referred to was the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord has said to the elders of the Church:--"And this ye shall know a.s.suredly, that there is none other appointed unto you to receive commandments and revelations until he be taken, if he abide in me.... And this shall be a law unto you, that ye receive not the teachings of any that shall come before you, as revelations or commandments. And this I give unto you that you may not be deceived, that you may know they are not of me."[718]

[718] Doc. and Cov. xliii, 3, 5, 6.

=25. The Testimony of Miracles.=--The Savior's promise in a former day[719] as in the present dispensation[720] is definite, to the effect that specified gifts of the Spirit are to follow the believer as signs of Divine favor. The possession and exercise of such gifts may be taken therefore as essential features of the Church of Christ.[721] Nevertheless we are not justified in regarding the evidence of miracles as infallible testimony of authority from heaven; on the other hand, the scriptures furnish abundant proof that spiritual powers of the baser sort have wrought miracles, and will continue so to do, to the deceiving of many who lack discernment. If miracles be accepted as infallible evidence of G.o.dly power, the magicians of Egypt, through the wonders which they accomplished in opposition to the ordained plan for Israel's deliverance, have as good a claim to our respect as has Moses.[722] John the Revelator saw in vision a wicked power working miracles, and thereby deceiving many; doing great wonders, even bringing fire from heaven.[723] Again, he saw three unclean spirits, whom he knew to be "the spirits of devils working miracles."[724]

[719] Mark xvi, 17-18.

[720] Doc. and Cov. lx.x.xiv, 65-73.

[721] See Notes 4 and 5.

[722] Exo. vii-xi.

[723] Rev. xiii, 11-18.

[724] Rev. xvi, 13-14.

=26.= Consider, in connection with this, the prediction made by the Savior:--"There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."[725] The invalidity of miracles as a proof of righteousness is declared in an utterance of Christ Jesus regarding the events of the great judgment:--"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?

and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."[726] The Jews, to whom these teachings were addressed, knew that wonders could be wrought by evil powers; for they charged Christ with working miracles by the authority of "Beelzebub the prince of devils."[727]

[725] Matt. xxiv, 24.

[726] Matt. vii, 22-23.

[727] Matt. xii, 22-30; Mark iii, 22; Luke xi, 15. See "Jesus the Christ," p. 265.

=27.= If the working of miracles were a distinctive characteristic of the holy priesthood, we would look for the testimony of wondrous manifestations in connection with the work of every prophet and authorized minister of the Lord; yet we fail to find a record of miracles in the case of Zechariah, Malachi, and other prophets of old; while of John the Baptist, whom Christ declared to be more than a prophet,[728] it was plainly said that he did no miracle;[729]

nevertheless, in rejecting John's doctrine, the unbelievers were ignoring the counsel of G.o.d against their own souls.[730] To be valid as a testimony of truth, miracles must be wrought in the name of Christ, and to His honor, in furtherance of the plan of salvation. As stated, they are not given to satisfy the curious and the l.u.s.tful, nor as a means of gaining notoriety for him through whom they are accomplished. These gifts of the true Spirit are manifested in support of the message from heaven, and in corroboration of the words spoken by authority.

[728] Matt. xi, 9.

[729] John x, 41.

[730] Luke vii, 30.

=28. Imitations of Spiritual Gifts.=--The proofs already cited of miraculous achievements by powers other than of G.o.d, and the scriptural predictions concerning such deceptive manifestations in the last days, ought to be our warning against spurious imitations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Satan has shown himself to be an accomplished strategist and a skilful imitator; the most deplorable of his victories are due to his simulation of good, whereby the undiscerning have been led captive. Let us not be deluded with the thought that any act, the immediate result of which appears to be benign, is necessarily productive of permanent good. It may serve the dark purposes of man's arch-enemy to play upon the human sense of goodness, even to the extent of healing the body, and apparently of thwarting death.

=29.= The restoration of the priesthood to earth in this age of the world was followed by a phenomenal growth of the vagaries of spiritualism, whereby many have been led to put their trust in Satan's counterfeit of G.o.d's eternal power. The development of the healing gift in the Church today is imitated in a degree comparable to that with which the magicians simulated the miracles of Moses, by the varied faith cures and their numerous modifications. For those to whom miraculous signs are all-sufficient, the imitation will answer as well as would the real; but the soul who regards the miracle in its true nature as but one element of the system of Christ, possessing value as a positive criterion only as it is a.s.sociated with the numerous other characteristics of the Church, will not be deceived.

=30. Spiritual Gifts in the Church Today.=--The Latter-day Saints claim to possess within the Church all the sign-gifts promised as the heritage of the believer. They point to the unimpeached testimonies of thousands who have been blessed with direct and personal manifestations of heavenly power; to the once blind, and dumb, halt, and weak in body, who have been freed from their infirmities through their faith and by the ministrations of the priesthood; to a mult.i.tude who have voiced their testimony in tongues with which they were naturally unfamiliar; or who have demonstrated their possession of the gift by a phenomenal mastery of foreign languages, when such was necessary to the discharge of their duties as preachers of the word of G.o.d; to many who have enjoyed communion with heavenly beings; to others who have prophesied in words that have found their speedy vindication in literal fulfillment; and to the Church itself, whose growth has been guided by the voice of its Divine Leader, made known through the gift of revelation.[731]

[731] Sec Note 7.

NOTES.

=1. A Seeming Miracle.=--A few years ago, Herr Werner Siemens, a German scientist of note, visited the pyramid of Gizeh, and, accompanied by a couple of Arab guides, climbed to the top. He observed that the atmospheric conditions were very favorable to electric manifestations. Fastening a large bra.s.s b.u.t.ton to an empty water-gourd in the hands of one of the Arabs, and then placing his knuckle within a short distance from the b.u.t.ton, he drew therefrom a succession of brilliant sparks, accompanied of course by the crackling noises characteristic of electric discharges. The guides viewed this exhibition of supernatural powers with amazement and terror, which reached a climax when their master stretched his staff above his head, and the stick was surmounted by a beautiful St. Elmo's flame. This spectacle was more than the superst.i.tious Bedouins could bear, they trembled before an enchanter who could play with lightning and fire as with a toy, and who carried miniature thunder in his coat pocket; so they fled down the steps with dangerous precipitation, and soon disappeared in the desert.

=2. The Term "Prophet"= appears in the English Bible as the translation of a number of ancient terms, the most usual of which is _nabhi_ (Hebrew), signifying "to bubble forth like a fountain." Another of the original words is _rheo_ (Greek), meaning "to flow," and by derivation "to speak forth," "to utter," "to declare." A prophet, then, is one from whom flow forth the words of a higher authority. Aaron is spoken of as a prophet or spokesman to Moses (Exo. vii, 1); but in the usual sense, the prophet is the representative of G.o.d. Closely allied with the calling of the prophet is that of the seer; indeed, at a time prior to that of Samuel, the common designation of the oracle of G.o.d was seer: "for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime called a seer" (I Sam. ix, 9). The seer was permitted to behold the visions of G.o.d, the prophet to declare the truths so learned; the two callings were usually united in the same person. Unto the prophet and seer the Lord usually communicated in visions and dreams; but an exception to this order was made in the case of Moses, who was so faithful and so great in all things good, that the Lord discarded the usual means and declared Himself to His servant face to face (Num. xii, 6-8).

=3. Prophets Organized.=--The prophet's office existed among men in the earliest periods of history. Adam was a prophet (Doc. and Cov. cvii, 53-56); as also were Enoch (Jude 14; P. of G. P., Moses vi, 26), Noah (Gen. vi, vii; P. of G. P., Moses viii, 19; II Peter ii, 5), Abraham (Gen. xx, 7), Moses (Deut. x.x.xiv, 10), and a mult.i.tude of others who ministered at intermediate and subsequent times. Samuel, who was established in the eyes of all Israel as a prophet of the Lord (I Sam. iii, 19, 20), organized the prophets into a society for common instruction and edification. He established schools for the prophets, theological colleges, where men were trained in things pertaining to holy offices; the students were generally called "sons of the prophets" (I Kings xx, 35; II Kings ii, 3, 5, 7; iv, 1, 38; ix, 1). Such schools were established at Ramah (I Sam. xix, 19, 20), Bethel (II Kings ii, 3), Jericho (II Kings ii, 5), Gilgal (II Kings iv, 38). The members seem to have lived together as a society (II Kings vi, 1-4). In the present dispensation, a similar organization was effected under the direction of the prophet Joseph Smith; this also received the name of the School of the Prophets.

=4. The Decline of Spiritual Gifts in former days= is admitted by many authorities on ecclesiastical history and Christian doctrine. As an instance of this kind of testimony to the departure of the spiritual graces from the apostate church, the following words of John Wesley may be applied:--"It does not appear that these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit were common in the church for more than two or three centuries. We seldom hear of them after that fatal period when the emperor Constantine called himself a Christian, and from a vain imagination of promoting the Christian cause thereby, heaped riches and power and honor upon Christians in general, but in particular upon the Christian clergy. From this time they almost totally ceased; very few instances of the kind were found. The cause of this was not as has been supposed because there was no more occasion for them,--because all the world was become Christians. This is a miserable mistake; not a twentieth part of it was then nominally Christian. The real cause of it was the love of many, almost all Christians, so called, was waxed cold.

The 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 the earth. This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian Church--because the Christians were turned heathens again, and only had a dead form left."--Wesley's Works, vii, 89; 26-27.

=5. Sectarian Views concerning Continuance or Decline of Spiritual Gifts.=--"Protestant writers insist that the age of miracles closed with the fourth or fifth century, and that after that the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost must not be looked for. Catholic writers, on the other hand, insist that the power to perform miracles has always continued in the Church; yet those spiritual manifestations which they describe after the fourth and fifth centuries savor of invention on the part of the priests, and childish incredulity on the part of the people; or else, what is claimed to be miraculous falls far short of the power and dignity of those spiritual manifestations which the primitive church was wont to witness. The virtues and prodigies, ascribed to the bones and other relics of the martyrs and saints, are puerile in comparison with the healings by the anointing with oil and the laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, interpretations, prophecies, revelations, casting out devils in the name of Jesus Christ; to say nothing of the gifts of faith, wisdom, knowledge, discernment of spirits, etc.--common in the Church in the days of the apostles (I Cor. xii, 8-10). Nor is there anything in the scriptures or in reason that would lead one to believe that they were to be discontinued. Still this plea is made by modern Christians--explaining the absence of these spiritual powers among them--that the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were only intended to accompany the proclamation of the gospel during the first few centuries, until the church was able to make its way without them, and they were to be done away. It is sufficient to remark upon this, that it is a.s.sumption pure and simple, and stands without warrant either of scripture or right reason; and proves that men had so far changed the religion of Jesus Christ that it became a form of G.o.dliness without the power thereof."--Elder B. H. Roberts, _Outlines of Ecclesiastical History_, part ii, sec. v, 6-8.

=6. Miracles an Aid to Spiritual Growth.=--Apostle Orson Pratt, commenting on the utterances of Paul concerning the pa.s.sing away of certain spiritual gifts (I Cor. xiii), writes in part as follows:--"The church in its militant and imperfect state, compared with its triumphant, immortal, and perfect state, is (in the 11th verse) represented by the two very different states of childhood and manhood. 'When,' says St. Paul, 'I was a child, I spake as a child, understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things.' In the various stages of education from childhood to manhood, certain indispensable rules, and diagrams, and scientific instruments are employed for the use and benefit of the pupil, that he may acquire a correct knowledge of the sciences, and be perfected in his studies. When the principles have been once acquired, and the student has been perfected in every branch of education, he can dispense with many of his maps, charts, globes, books, diagrams, etc.; as being, like childish things, no longer necessary; they were useful before his education was perfected, in imparting the desired knowledge, but having fulfilled their purposes, he no longer needs their a.s.sistance.... So it is with the Church in relation to spiritual gifts. While in this state of existence it is represented as a child: prophecy, revelations, tongues, and other spiritual gifts are the instruments of education. The child, or church, can no more be perfected in its education without the aid of these gifts as instruments, than the chemist could in his researches if he were deprived of the necessary apparatus for experiments. As the chemist needs his laboratory for experiments, as long as there remains any undiscovered truths in relation to the elements and compounds of our globe, so does the Church need the great laboratory of spiritual knowledge--namely, revelation and prophecy,--as long as it knows only in part.... As a human being, when a child, speaks as a child, understands as a child, and thinks as a child, so does the Church in this state of existence know only in part; but as the child, when it becomes a man, puts away childish things, so will the Church put away such childish things as 'prophecy in part,'

'knowledge in part,' and 'seeing in part,' when it grows up, through the aid of these things, to a perfect man in Christ Jesus; that which is in part will be done away or merged into the greater fulness of knowledge which there reigns."--_Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon_, i, 15.

But none of these gifts will be done away as long as the occasion for their exercise continues. That this was the conviction of Apostle Orson Pratt, whose words are quoted above, is evident from the following utterances by the same authority:--"The affliction of devils, the confusion of tongues, deadly poisons and sickness, are all curses which have been introduced into the world by the wickedness of man. The blessings of the gospel are bestowed to counteract these curses. Therefore, as long as these curses exist, the promised signs [Mark xvi, 16-18; Doc. and Cov.

lx.x.xiv, 65-72] are needed to counteract their evil consequences.

If Jesus had not intended that the blessings should be as extensive and unlimited in point of time as the curses, He would have intimated something to that effect in His word. But when He makes a universal promise of certain powers, to enable every believer in the gospel throughout the world to overcome certain curses, entailed upon man because of wickedness, it would be the rankest kind of infidelity not to believe the promised blessing necessary, as long as the curses abound among men."

=7. Modern Manifestations.=--The official and incidental publications of the Church abound in instances of miraculous manifestations during the current dispensation. A number of authenticated accounts with many cases are to be found as follows:--Orson Pratt's "Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon," chapter v; B. H. Roberts' "A New Witness for G.o.d,"

chapter xviii.

For a brief treatment of "The Att.i.tude of Science towards Miracles" see in "Jesus the Christ," p. 151, Note 7, summary of an article published by the Victoria Inst.i.tute or Philosophical Society of Great Britain.

LECTURE XIII.

THE BIBLE.