Orson Spencer

“ You, sir, will surely admit, that the faith of the ancients was far superior to modern traditionary faith, and was attended with a power which this latter faith cannot, in its very nature, ever attain to. By the ancient faith, or faith of immediate revelation, men wrought righteousness, subdued kingdoms, stopped the mouths of lions, and quenched the violence of fire—stayed the sun in the firmament—sealed up the heavens as brass for the space of three years and a half, or opened the windows thereof for the rain to descend in showers or torrents, even to a universal deluge. ”

“ But the most humiliating feature in the whole history of governments is, that many have sought to ape the Divine government with an uninspired priesthood. They have thereby made every species of religious government a stink and confusion in all the earth. Their uninspired systems have been like a fair woman without discretion, or like jewels in a swine's snout. Sometimes they have united church and state, and swayed a sceptre of oppression; at other times they have been passive and non-resistant, even to the utter extinction of thousands whose defenceless blood has crimsoned the earth. ”

“ Now, sir, is it at all incredible that an angel should come to men? Or is it incredible that he should come soaring, or "flying in the midst of heaven to earth?" You certainly believe, that Jesus Christ and Elijah soared from the earth up through the air, or visible heavens. Is it not also credible, that God should employ an angel to carry a message to the nations? And as God ministered the law by angels to one man, Moses, for a whole nation, even so the angel that John saw, would minister his gospel message to some particular man, and that man should bear it to the nations of the earth. ”

“ Now, when God shall build up Zion and his Holy House in the tops of the mountains, and all nations flow into it, will He not appear in his glory? Such a measure of union, and strength of attachment to the Lord and his people, the last days will exhibit as was never before realized on the earth; then will Zion rise and shine, her light being come, and the glory of God being risen upon her—yea, be an eternal excellency and the praise and joy of the whole earth! ”

“ Thus, sir, the notion of a God that is exclusively Spirit without bodily form, was banished from the minds of the disciples that saw the bodily image of the Father in the person of the Son after his resurrection. From heaven he will come again in like manner, and every eye shall see him, and they that have pierced him. But the popular God of modern times, that has no body or parts, cannot be seen. But, sir, this popular God that has sprung into fashion, since the age of revelation, has no resemblance to Jesus Christ, who has both body and parts, and is the exact image of his Father. ”

“ Go back to whatever part of the history of Bible piety you will, you will never be able to glean up anything in the shape or likeness of modern piety; but you will pick up the hot indignation of apostles and prophets against all such pretended piety. The Bible wages an uncompromising war against modern piety that wears the mask of friendship for ancient revelations and miracles, while it resists the same faith and power in its own day. It is no new thing to have revelation and miracles cease: they were discontinued in consequence of transgression in several different periods of the world. ”

“ I know it is very difficult to convince sectarians that they are not a pious people. Why, say they, do we not manifest much more fervency of spirit, and studied sacredness of deportment, and punctilious exactness, in observing the Sabbath than Latter-day Saints? Do we not show to all men great self-abasement in confessing our sins to be like crimson and scarlet, and our iniquities to be like mountains in magnitude. Are we not scrupulously guarded against all levity and trifling conversation? Are not our preachers very grave, and apparently devoted and holy in their bearing? ”

“ Is it possible that that illiterate young man, Joseph Smith, should be the first, after the lapse of so many ages, to break the spell of darkness, and pierce the clouds of error, and let in the sunshine of eternal truth upon the whole world? Is it possible that he whom we have been accustomed to regard as the blackest impostor—about whose moral character there hang so many shades of suspicion? ”

“ In the meridian of life I go from the tombs of my fathers to build and plant, where the eagle of liberty soars aloft in the sunbeams of truth! My associates are called, and tried, and chosen; they are the virtuous and honourable of all the earth; the refuse of all nations, but accepted of God and escorted by his angels. Their bosoms beat high with every noble impulse of philanthropy and virtue; they are a magnanimous people, fitted to foster and garner up the scattered virtues of the human family, and open up a safe asylum to the oppressed of all nations ”

“ Now, sir, will the Spirit join with such a Bride, and say to Jesus the Great Bridegroom, "come!" the Bride hath made herself ready! No, sir, the Spirit of God will say, I never knew you; depart from me, you pusillanimous, benighted, powerless, contentious christianity. "Thou Aholibah and Aholibamah, thy lewdness is in all high places;" "thou hast played the harlot with many lovers—yea, thou hast even hired lovers" (with human inventions) , instead of commanding admiration by the grace of thy "seers," and the "visions of thy handmaids," and the "healing power of thine elders." ”

“ We were accounted as a people too clannish, like the ancient Hebrews, and too peculiar and exclusive, like the apostles of Palestine.
We had no alternative but to commend ourselves to the God of the oppressed, and take precipitate refuge, in the dead of winter, in the wild valleys of the mountains. To the God of justice, and the great Arbiter of the destinies of nations, we look to avenge our wrongs, and chasten the nation that has been deaf to the voice of her suffering and loyal citizens. He will hear our cries and avenge our wrongs. ”

“ I love my native land, though cruelly exiled from it, because it is in that land that liberty is destined to flourish above all lands. That land has been set apart in the councils of eternity, and dedicated as the nursery of virtue and religious liberty. That is emphatically a land of promise. Its very soil is hallowed above all others, for the literal production of truth. There the blessings promised to Joseph are to be first displayed and enjoyed. There the ensign is to be first lifted up to all nations; and all nations, or the upright of all nations, are to flow together there. ”

“ There was an unspeakable something, a portentous significancy in the firmament and among the inhabitants of the earth. Multitudes felt the whisperings of wo and grief, and the forebodings of tribulation and sorrow that they will never forget, though the tongue of man can never utter it. The Saints of God, whether near the scene of blood, or even a thousand miles distant, felt at the very moment the prophet lay in royal gore, that an awful deed was perpetrated. ”

“ Must thy daughters, the fairest workmanship of their Maker, be given to rapine and violence, when the eye of pity is turned away, and the aegis of angelic guardianship is reluctantly withdrawn? Except you bind up the broken in heart, and make restitution for robbery and rapine, and unprovoked banishment of loyal citizens, who poured out their blood as water at the voice of your governors and the mandates of your laws,—the vials of wo are in store for your unhappy country! No intercessor can stay the blast of divine indignation when the Almighty rises up to make inquisition for blood. ”

“ Sir, my heart swells with deep concern that all men might obey the only true gospel, that entitles to a part in the first resurrection!
The limits of my letter forbid me to exhort; but suffer me to say, unless you have the same faith with Daniel and Elijah, and the same spirit of revelation with Peter, Abraham, and Moses, you can never associate with resurrected bodies, neither with holy angels, nor with God. In your flesh you never can see God. ”

“ Those who had these latter visions, instead of being covered or unknown, are well known, and preached every Sabbath day. Don't shrink from this issue, sir, but meet it like one who feels his destiny to be suspended on a correct faith in revealed truth. What mysterious collection of visions, arranged into the form of a BOOK, that no uninspired man can read, IS THIS? It must be the visions of some prophets and seers, that have lived and prophesied to some people, that have now faded from the knowledge of men. Mankind is ignorant of them. ”

“ Poor misguided but honest men! How happy might they have been had they known the true primitive gospel that Paul preached, by the infallible light of inspiration! How joyful the intelligence to the honest but misguided, when the glad news of restitution shall reverberate in their prisons, and cause the captive exile to haste into light and liberty! Not only will the hopes and faith of men be set right in the times of restitution, but the earth itself will undergo an important change, and the heavenly bodies or planetary system. ”

“ Now, sir, suffer me to entreat you to abandon all such crude theories concerning God, which are as baseless and unscriptural as the most extravagant vagaries of the heathen, and confine your faith to the simple obvious testimony of Jesus and the prophets. And remember that this is not a subject of little importance; for it is written, that, to know God and Jesus Christ is eternal life. No man can understand the import of eternal life, nor how it is secured to believers, that does not know God and Jesus Christ. In God and Christ is eternal life. ”

“ This, sir, is the gospel, and the only gospel. It exhibits the power of God and the wisdom and might of God. Any other gospel is a curse to men, and a stink in the nose of God. Angels have once tried to preach another gospel; and what has been the result of their efforts? They have been hurled down and are even now reserved in chains under darkness, to the judgment of the great day; and those who first began to preach modern christianity have doubtless shared a doom scarcely less awful. ”

“ Will not Peter and his fellow-desciples rejoice to recognise that same Jesus who ascended to heaven with a body like their own, and if Jesus bears the image of the Father, they will be equally familiar with the Highest. What is there, sir, that contributes more to the glory of God than his creative power, by which he brings myriads of living intelligences into being, through whom a chaotic universe is organized into works of beauty, taste, grandeur, and glory? ”

“ Now, sir, let me say, distinctly, that the testimony of any number of men, or of all men together, is no proof either for or against the authority, doctrine, or mission of a prophet or true minister of God. For if no one man can know a minister of God without revelation, then no large body of men can know him; and surely they cannot testify of what they do not KNOW. No matter what is said against Joseph Smith, or who, or how many, say it, or however credible the witnesses, they are not competent to testify, because they have not the gift of revelation. ”