Mormonism Exposed (Hancock)/Chapter 2
A proper view of the development of the remedial system will give us the decision of the Almighty as to the amount of revelation essential in order to the one great purpose regarding the human family. Time was divided into three periods called dispensations. These are known as the Patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Christian. These have been beautifully represented as the starlight period, the moonlight period, and the daylight period of Christianity. During the first period of time, a period of darkness, because of the exceeding corruptness of the race, a man would appear here and there, who would shine as a bright star in the moral heavens. Of these we may mention Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Melchisedec and Job. This period was divided into two parts, the antediluvian and the postdiluvian. Yet the two constituted one period. This period continued till the giving of the law of Moses, hence, till the establishing of the first covenant in the development of the remedial system. With the establishing of that covenant a new and superior period was ushered in. The patriarchs had now as it were, surrendered their commission at the feet of Moses, the mediator of that covenant. The theocracy that was established with the giving of the law continued till the time was at hand for the ushering in of the period known as "The fulness of times,"—the establishing of the new, the everlasting covenant. When this covenant was to be established Moses and the prophets surrendered their commission at the feet of Jesus. From that time the command from God is Hear My Son.
Revelation was progressive, never retrogressive. The inferior surrendered to and was followed by the superior. Mormons claim that a new development was made through Joseph Smith; hence that with him a new period began. This being so it must be a progressive, a superior one. This being true God's will did not reach it's perfection in Christ. There are no retrogressive steps in inspiration neither does it do any work of supererogation. Can it be that God had something in reservation for man, to be made known through Joseph Smith, that was to be superior to what he gave through his Son? Is Mormonism superior to Christianity, and Joseph Smith above Jesus Christ? Such are the legitimate and blasphemous claims of this modernism!! For a revelation that had no superior claims over a former one, and that had no advantages over what had preceded it, no excuse could be given. Therefore, if with the appearing of the Book of Mormon a new period was to be ushered in, giving new advantages, advantages superior to any through previous revelations; then it follows, necessarily, that Jesus must surrender his commission at the feet of Smith! Was it for such purpose that God brought His Son to earth and introduced him to Smith?
That the Book of Mormon claims to be above the Bible is shown by the following:
"Wherefore, thou seest that after the book [that is, the Bible] hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church [the church of Rome] that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God, and these plain and precious things were taken away, it goeth forth unto all the nations of Gentiles, yea, even across the many waters which thou hast seen with the Gentiles which have gone forth out of captivity [that is, the Protestants]; thou seest because of the many plain and precious things which have been taken out of the book, which were plain unto the understanding of the children of men, according to the plainness which is in the Lamb of God; because of these things which are taken away out of the Gospel of the Lamb, an exceeding great many do stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them."—B. of M. p. 22; 119.
[Note.—All the quotations from the Book of Mormon found in this book, are found in the Book of Mormon as published at Lamoni, Iowa.
From this we learn that the Bible is not the Book of God! No, it's just a skeleton, minus all the essentials of life! The many plain and precious things of the gospel are not in the Bible! It is just as good a thing as the devil wants; for it being destitute of the gospel of Christ it is minus the power of God for salvation. Therefore, without the appearing of Joseph Smith none could be saved. When we challenge Mormon leaders to specify a single item in the gospel of Christ that is not in the New Testament they are mum. We will see how completely Mormonism breaks its own neck at this point. Mormons admit that the new Testament is an inspired book. It claims, however to contain the fulness of the gospel. Its claims in this are false. Therefore, the New Testament is an inspired falsehood! The fact is, the statement concerning the Bible in the quotation we gave is as base a falsehood as was ever. uttered. This is strong language. But we have a severe case, and strong medicine is needed. The statement concerning the Bible as made in the quotation made from the Book of Mormon gives, in substance, an old infidel objection to the Bible that had been made many, very many years before Joe Smith was born. We will now and here give it the needed attention. We give this objection as presented in the language of Orson Pratt. He says:
"The gathering together of the few scattered manuscripts which compose what is termed the Bible was the work of uninspired men, which took place centuries after John had finished his manuscript. Among the vast number of professedly inspired manuscripts, scattered through the world, man, poor weak, ignorant man, assumed the authority to select a few, which, according to his frail judgment, he believed or conjected were of God; but the balance not agreeing, perhaps, with his peculiar notion of divine inspiration, were rejected as spurious. The few selected from the abundance were finally arranged into one volume, divided into chapter and verse, and named the Bible."
Again:
"How does the Protestant world know that the compilers of the Bible, in hunting up the sacred manuscripts which were widely scattered over the world, one in one place, and another in another, found all that were of divine origin? How do they know that the compilers of the Bible found even the one hundredth part of the manuscripts that were sacred?"—"Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon." p. 130.
As Orson Pratt was one of Smith's chosen apostles his utterances show the true spirit of Mormon inspiration. Why should Mormons make such attacks upon the Bible? The answer is, Unless the Bible can be brought into disrepute there can be no room for the Book of Mormon. We will first see what foundation there is for such infidel attacks upon the Old Testament. In the days of Christ and the apostles that book existed in two languages. The Hebrew and the Greek. We have a copy of the Septuagint version. It was a translation from the Hebrew, made in Alexandria, Egypt, about 200 years before Christ. It contains the books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi. This shows that the Hebrew version contained the same. Christ and his apostles used them, and endorsed them as the word of God. They were such, or Christ and his apostles were false teachers. In this we have the inspiration of Jesus, versus Mormon inspiration. They cannot both be true.
"Suppose a merchant in San Francisco receive a large order from a firm in Liverpool for several cargoes of wheat. He goes to the Merchant's Intelligence Office and satisfies himself that the Liverpool house is perfectly solvent. But he has never had any correspondence with that house before, and so does not certainly know that the signature is genuine. Just then one of his neighbors whom he knows to be a true man, and who has recently returned from England, steps in with a strange gentleman, and introduces him as a son of the senior partner, and himself a member of the firm. The San Francisco merchant shows the letter to the young Englishman. "Yes!" he says "that is all right; that is my father's signature." Then he proceeds to explain the letter. There is no longer any doubt or delay in filling the order. Now, can we authenticate the Bible in any such way? We authenticate the Bible in this very way. The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, has visited our world as the Word of God, on this very business, to declare God's Word to us. He has read the Bible carefully, as much of it as was then written, and he has directed the writing of the remainder. He has given us his opinion of it repeatedly in direct statements; has quoted many passages from it and explained them, and exposed and reprobated the additions which the scribes and Pharisees would have made to the Bible by their traditions. We can trust the testimony of Jesus unhesitatingly. All Christians acknowledge Him as the Truth, and no infidel has dared to charge Him with falsehood."—"The Testimony of Christ to the Truth of the Old Testament," by Robert Patterson.
Touching the authenticity of the New Testament, we give the following:
"I was dining some time ago with a literary party at old Mr. Abercrombie's, father of General Abercrombie, who was slain in Egypt at the head of the British army, and spending the evening together. A gentleman present put a question which puzzled the whole company. It was this: Supposing all the New Testaments in the world had been destroyed at the end of the third century, could their contents have been recovered from the writings of the first three centuries?" The question was novel to all, and no one even hazarded a guess in answer to the inquiry. About two months after this meeting, I received a note from Lord Hailes inviting me to breakfast with him next morning. He had been one of the party. During breakfast he asked me if I recollected the curious question about the possibility of recovering the contents of the New Testament from the writings of the first three centuries. 'I remember it well,' said I, 'and have thought of it often, without being able to form any opinion or conjecture on the subject.' 'Well,' said Lord Hailes, 'that question quite accorded with the turn or taste of my antiquarian mind. On returning home, as I knew I had all the writings of those centuries, I began immediately to collect them, that I might set to work on the arduous tatk as soon as possible.' Pointing to a table, covered with papers, he said, 'There have I been busy for these two months, searching for chapters, half chapters, and sentences of the New Testament, and have marked down what I have found, and where I have found it, so that any person may examine and see for himself. I have actually discovered the whole New Testament from those writings except seven (or eleven) verses, (I forget which) which satisfied me that I could discover them also.' 'Now,' said he, 'here was a way in which God concealed or hid the treasure of His Word, that Julian, the apostate emperor, and other enemies of Christ who tried to extirpate the gospels from the world, never would have thought of; and though they had they never could have effected their destruction.' The labor of effecting this feat must have been immense; for the Gospels and Epistles would not be divided into chapters and verses as they are now. Much must have been effected by help of a concordance. And having been a judge for many years, a habit of minute investigation must have been formed in his mind. The facilities for investigating this question are ample and easily accessible to any intelligent student. The Ante-Nicene Library, published by T. and T. Clark, of Edinburg, comprises some twenty-four octavo volumes, averaging about five hundred pages each. In these twelve thousand octavo pages of printed matter are comprised nearly all the extant writings of some fifteen or twenty of the most eminent Christian authors who lived before the year A. D. 325, when the council of Nice was convened. One of the volumes also contains such remains of those spurious, uncanonical and fictitious gospels, Acts, etc., as have come down to us from early ages. In these twelve thousand pages, all of which are accessible to skeptics in English translations, which can be compared with the originals by those who are competent to do so, will be found an overwhelming avalanche of evidence upon the question of the origin of the New Testament Scriptures. These men, some of whom were contemporary with the apostles, and others who, as their immediate successors, were well acquainted with their associates and contemporaries, give in these writings the most positive and unmistakable evidence as to the New Testament books which they received, and as to the estimation in which those books were held. They quote passage after passage, and page after page, of the same Scriptures that are quoted today and read in every Christian assembly. They quoted the books which we quote; they quoted them as we quote them; they received them as we receive them; and this long before the Council of Nice or any other council had anything to say about the canon of the Scriptures."—Who made the New Testament, by Hastings.
Such is a mere inkling of what might be given. This, however, shows the statement of Orson Pratt to be utterly false. God save the people from a system of religion that demands an infidel stand in order to find a plea for its existence.