Parley P. Pratt

“ If such institutions actually professed wickedness, they would go for what they were worth; but when a thing professes to be holy, and takes the name of Christ as its founder, and the holy Prophets and Apostles, to carry out all manner of oppression, all manner of idolatry and idol worship, all manner of priestcraft and kingcraft, and more or less instigating division among nations and governments, all to carry out bloodshed, cruelty, the rack, the inquisition, and holding of men in bondage, ruling them with a rod of iron, it is a mystery of iniquity calculated to deceive millions. ”

“ A great portion of the oriental country has been preserved from the grossest idolatry, wickedness, confusion, bloodshed, murders, cruelty, and errors in religion that have overspread the rest of the world, under the name of Christianity, or mystery of iniquity.
An open defiance of God is no mystery; open drunkenness, and revelling debauchery, and all manner of wickedness and immorality professed by sinners who profess to be nothing else, are no mystery; they do not deceive anybody ”

“ There is one thing for which I like Mahometanism better than the present Christianity of the world; if prisoners are taken by them, no matter of what country or religion, and they become lawful captives, doomed to slavery, according to their rules, they will take them from their labor, order them to wash their bodies, and put on clean clothes, give them plenty to eat to refresh them, until they have rested and have full power and vigor of both body and mind to investigate and study the Mahometan religion. ”

“ Jesus Christ, whom we worship as the Son of God, and the Savior of the world, has body, parts, and passions, and he is like his Father; he is the express image of his Father's person and the brightness of His glory, whom we also worship. They are individual personages organized as a pattern after which men were created ”

“ If the captives embrace the true religion, as they call it, they are set free from slavery, and permitted to marry among them. But if the captives still reject the religion of the Mahometans, they are made to return to their slavery. ”

“ Inasmuch as he and his Father are organised with body and parts, with limbs, joints, flesh, and bones, that are immortal and eternal, they have no part or lot, or communication whatever, with that imaginary being which is recognised in the principal creeds of Christendom as their God, viz., a god without body, parts, or passions. ”

“ This is the idolatry that prevails more manifestly in the countries where religion is the law, but it also prevails right in our own country, because there is a liberty of conscience to worship what you please. ”

“ All that a nation could have, without the keys of the everlasting Gospel, without the gifts and powers pertaining to those keys, and without the fulness of the Gospel, the people of the East seemed to have been blessed with, so far as the Lord saw fit to bestow upon them blessings during those dark ages. ”

“ Setting aside this one point, they acknowledge and worship innumerable idols, pictures, images, &c., amounting almost to an infinite number, in every place where Christianity has been blended with the civil power, and enforced and established by law under the one great standard called Catholic—imaginary deities that are the works of men's hands, and to which they actually and literally bow down. This may not be the case so fully in these United States, where there is a kind of balance of power, and religion, and population, and influences of various kinds acting as checks upon each other ”

“ I want to know where the Christian nation is that does this—that will take their lawful captive that may have some other religion, and set him free from servitude, and give him time to wash and clothe himself, and think, and investigate, when both body and mind are enjoying their full power, and if they embrace their religion, then permit them to become citizens. ”

“ In such countries, you can contemplate that religion in all its open and unveiled idolatry; it is there you will see more fully exhibited the practice of worshipping images, of bowing down to dumb idols in the shape of pictures, images, saint worship, angel worship, &c., &c. ”

“ Many that were honest have been deceived by this mystery of iniquity, who have esteemed things to be sacred, which were abominably corrupt; and corrupt superstitions have been revered because of the great names and sanctified professions that were attached to them. ”

“ Now, if we take Mahometanism during those dark ages, and the corruptions that are so universally prevalent over the earth, and the idolatrous systems of religion, falsely called Christianity, and weigh them in a balance ”

“ There are, no doubt, sections of country, and different localities in Asia, where the people have not walked strictly according to the regulations and laws given by Mahomet, and observed by his true followers. ”