Divine dispensation

“ I. A Divine institution may become an abomination to the Divine Being. The right use of the gifts of God makes them blessings to men, but the abuse of them turns them into curses. So with the ordinances of worship, both under the Old Testament dispensation and in the New—that which is designed to bless men may by misuse add to their guilt before God, and that which, done in a right spirit, is most acceptable to Him, will, when joined to a sinful motive, be most abhorrent to His holy nature. ”

“ But this dispensation is not so openly and manifoldly declared, as it hath been in times past; which also is done by a marvellous dispensation, that through one only thing both God's love and justice should be fulfilled. ”

“ Theologically a dispensation is defined as one of the several systems of bodies of law in which at different periods God has revealed His mind and will to man, such as the Patriarchal Dispensation, the Mosaic Dispensation, or the Christian Dispensation. ”

“ The principle, then, is manifest, that the more holy and just any being is, the more opposed he is to sin, and the higher penalty will his conscience sanction as the desert of transgressing the Divine law. Now God being infinitely holy, he is, therefore, infinitely opposed to sin; and the Divine conscience will enforce penalty accordingly. ”

“ Some vainly imagine that, under the Gospel dispensation, gifts and blessings are obtained, not by external observances, or external works, but merely through faith and repentance, through mental operations, independent of physical. But, laying aside the traditions, superstitions, and creeds of men, we will look to the word of God, where we shall discover that external works, or outward ordinances, under the Gospel dispensation, were inseparably connected with inward works, such as faith and repentance. ”

“ A vision of the dispensations is involved—the reading of the Book of Time and the Volume of Eternity.
2—1986. **One Vast Mind.** Joseph Smith, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator.
3—2009. **The Solemn Dispensations.** In theology the term "dispensation"—from "dispense," to deal out or distribute—signifies the method or scheme by which God has at different times developed his purposes and revealed himself to man. It also denotes a period marked by some particular development of the Lord's work, such as the Mosaic Dispensation, lasting from Moses to Christ ”

“ And so the New Theology objects to all moral views of the atonement which make provisions for waiving any legal process or infliction of penalty, and holds that no new provision of grace or special scheme of redemption for the recovery of man from the power and dominion of sin was necessary; that all the elements for the restoration from sin to righteousness are included in the provisions of Nature, and are sufficient when quickened and invigorated by the Divine Spirit to reinstate men in holiness and in the favor of God. ”

“ The command of Christ goes further than this, and obliges us not only to cut off the foreskin of the heart, which may easily be spared, but to cut off the right hand and to pluck out the right eye that is an offence to us; the more spiritual the dispensation is the more spiritual we are obliged to be, and to go the closer in mortifying sin. ”

“ What good has been done to religion at your expence? What arbitrary indulgences have been granted to dissenters, or legal ones, besides that of worshipping God? Is it a sin against you, to suffer them to exercise religion in a way different from you; when every man who worships God, must worship him his own way, in the way which he thinks God will accept, else he cannot worship him at all? ”

“ For, admitting that God might easily prevent sin, and cause holiness to reign universally, what had he left to oppose to the attacks of the sceptic but the shield of faith? He might say, indeed, as he often does, that God voluntarily permits sin, because it is a part and parcel of the best possible universe. ”

“ Only to the first man, then, was the law proposed as a method of salvation. With the first sin, all hope of obtaining the divine favor by perfect obedience is lost. To sinners the law remains as a means of discovering and developing sin in its true nature, and of compelling a recourse to the mercy provided in Jesus Christ. ”

“ The divine law, then, not only forbids the worshipping of idols, but also of the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, or the other stars; yea, not heaven, nor earth, nor the sea, nor fountains, nor rivers, must be worshipped, but we must serve in holiness of heart and sincerity of purpose only the living and true God, who also is Maker of the universe. Wherefore saith the holy law: “Thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not desire thy neighbour’s wife.” ”

“ We are living in the dispensation which is emphatically called the dispensation of the fulness of times, which we are informed from the scriptures has been "spoken of by all the holy prophets since the world was;" and this being the case, the dispensation in which we live embraces necessarily all that was contained in any and all of the other dispensations that have existed in all the ages preceding ours ”

“ The Theological Species.—If there is explicit invocation of evil spirits, divination is of its nature a mortal sin that admits of no lightness of matter, for it gives divine worship to a creature, acts on friendly terms with the enemy of God, and prepares one for apostasy and eternal damnation. If there is no explicit invocation of the spirits of evil, the sin is of its nature mortal on account of the implicit commerce with the devil ”

“ The grandest and most distinctive peculiarity of the gospel dispensation is, therefore, its adaptedness to the state of the most miserable, and the attention it pays to them in particular. Not those that are whole, but the sick; not the righteous, but sinners; not many wise, or mighty, or noble, but the foolish, the weak, the base, the despised, hath God chosen, that no flesh should glory in his presence. ”

“ Indeed, Almighty God, in his infinite mercy, can dispose a soul, in a moment, for receiving sanctifying grace, and infuse, at the same time, this grace into the soul. The light of true faith, the voluntary inclination of free-will to conform to the will and grace of God, the determination of free-will to abstain from sin, the remission of sins, and the infusion of grace, take place by a simultaneous movement; for justification is instantaneous, and has no successive gradation. ”

“ It was of the doing that will in the offering His body that He spake, ‘I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.’ The giving up of His will to God’s will in the agony of Gethsemane, and then the doing of that will in the obedience unto death, this was Christ’s sanctifying Himself and us too. Let us try and understand this.
The Holiness of God is revealed in His will. Holiness even in the Divine Being has no moral value except as it is freely willed. ”

“ The truth is, any sin is against the Divine authority; and he who has committed one transgression is guilty of death; and by his one deliberate act dissolves, as far as he can, the sacred connection that subsists between all the Divine precepts and the obligation which he is under to obey, and thus casts off in effect his allegiance to God. ”

“ But there is this difference between the dispensation in which we are engaged and other dispensations which have preceded it: we have the promise of God that His work introduced in this the dispensation of the fulness of times shall never be overthrown, so that this dispensation differs in this respect from every dispensation which has preceded it. There is no stopping this work. ”

“ If, therefore, that Spirit's teachings be disregarded or disobeyed, or His inward movings be hindered, in just such measure will prayer become formal or be altogether abandoned. Sin, consciously indulged, or duty, knowingly neglected, makes supplication an offence to God. ”

“ This scheme of salvation must not, of course, be conceived as a divine precept to commit venial sins. It is merely a wise toleration of sin and a just refusal, on the part of the Almighty, to restore the human race to that entirely unmerited state of freedom from concupiscence with which it was endowed in Paradise, and which alone could guarantee the moral possibility of unspotted innocence. ”

“ It is not true, that, through the force and efficacy of the secret will of God or of the divine decree, not only are all good things necessarily done, but likewise all evil things; so that whosoever commit sin, they are not able, in respect to the divine decree, to do otherwise than commit sin; and that God wills, decrees, and [procurat] is the manager of men’s sins, and of their insane, foolish, and cruel actions, also of the sacrilegious blasphemy of his own name; that he moves the tongues of men to blaspheme, &c. ”

“ This definition regards sin as predicable only of rational and voluntary agents. (b) It assumes, however, that man has a rational nature below consciousness, and a voluntary nature apart from actual volition. (c) It holds that the divine law requires moral likeness to God in the affections and tendencies of the nature, as well as in its outward activities. (d) It therefore considers lack of conformity to the divine holiness in disposition or state as a violation of law, equally with the outward act of transgression. ”

“ It shows us that the will and power of God, in dealing with the sins of his accountable creature, man, cannot, if we may so speak, be arbitrary, unregulated power and will, but must spring, of necessity, out of his underived moral nature. If it be according to this moral nature, which constitutes the governing law of Deity,—the law which controls Deity,—that without the 'shedding of blood there can be no remission, then blood must be shed, or remission cannot be obtained; atonement for sin there must be. ”

“ Sin is the destitution or privation of correspondence and agreement with the divine law, that law which is the transcript of the divine nature and purity, which contains his will for the government of the world, which is suitable to the rational nature, and enacted for the good of the world, which shows man the way of felicity and peace, and conducts him to the author of his nature and of the law. The current commission of sin now is the rejection of the divine law, and this is the rejection of the divine authority, and consequently of God himself. ”

“ But it has before been proved that God never established a new dispensation without renewing revelations. During the Adamic dispensation, which continued while man was yet without sin, God revealed himself. So also during the patriarchal dispensation. God taught man how to offer sacrifices and to conduct worship. The Mosaic dispensation was established through revelation continued through centuries until four hundred years before Christ. The New Testament dispensation or Gospel dispensation was wonderfully rich in revelations, until the Priesthood was taken away "unto God" (Rev. vii, 5) ”

“ With the help of the Holy Spirit, conviction of sin may be roused by presentation of the claims of God's perfect law, and by drawing attention, first to particular overt transgressions, and then to the manifold omissions of duty, the general lack of supreme and all-pervading love to God, and the guilty rejection of Christ's offers and commands. ”

“ It appears to me, so far as I can judge and read here”—my Bible was still in my hand—“that throughout the New, and in many parts of the Old Testament, runs one clear doctrine, namely, that any sin, however great, being repented of and forsaken, is by God, and ought to be by man, altogether pardoned, blotted out and done away.” ”

“ In the first place, the Divine commandments forbid the indulgence of every feeling or inclination that is opposed to love, whether towards God or man. The commandment, for instance, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," when understood in its full spiritual sense, forbids not only all blasphemy or levity in speaking of God, but also all thought or feeling of irreverence towards him or of murmuring at his providences,—in a word, all that stands opposed to the love and worship of him. ”

“ It is true that we are told that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins; but why this? Why should such a law exist? It is left with us as a matter of faith, that it was necessary he should come and, being necessary, he shrank not from the task, but came to take away sin by offering up himself. ”

“ A failure to make this distinction has been a fruitful source of division and distress of our holy cause, and a failure to so distinguish between God's permissive and overruling decree of sin and his causative decree of holiness will ever cause distress and confusion among our people. ”

“ But as sin opposes holiness, and the sinner resists sanctification, the work of the holiness of God reveals itself in His kingdom of grace, not only positively in the sanctification of those who suffer themselves to be sanctified and raised to newness of life, but negatively also, in the destruction of all those who obstinately refuse the guidance of His grace ”

“ Thus the apostle shows that the law had authority to prohibit, condemn, and destroy; but no power to pardon sin, root out enmity, or save the soul.
The word επιθυμια, which we render concupiscence, signifies simply strong desire of any kind; but in the New Testament, it is generally taken to signify irregular and unholy desires. Sin in the mind is the desire to do, or to be, what is contrary to the holiness and authority of God. ”

“ When, therefore, a man was afraid of hell or of purgatory, he could make his confession to the indulgence-seller or his agent, receive from him the absolution which gave his imperfect repentance the value of true contrition, released him from the guilt of sin, and changed its eternal penalty to a temporal penalty, then he could purchase the plenary indulgence, which remitted the temporal penalty, and so in one transaction, in which all the demands of the Church were formally met, he could become sure of heaven. ”