A portraiture of Mormonism

Front matter

| POETEAITUEE OF MOEMONTSM, '

I

OR ANIMADVERSIONS ON THE

Preface

The divine founder of the Christian Eeligion had scarely left the Earth, before Heresies of various kinds began to creep into the church; and individuals, "whose doctrines partook more of the nature of Infidelity than of the pure and sublime truths of the Grospel, dressed themselves in the garb of Christianity, in order to propagate the more effectually their pernicious principles, and enhance their own temporal power, fame, and wealth. The chief of these consisted of persons who pretended to be possessed of superhuman powers, and the chosen instruments, in the hands of the Almighty, for bringing about some great and important work, generally teaching that the scriptures were insufficient to inform those who read them the way of salvation, and consequently the necessity of other communications being received from the supreme majesty of heaven, which communications were to be made through the medium of themselves. From that time to the present, the church has been infested with these kind of impostors.

In all ages, and in every nation, persons who thought they could enjoy more luxury, ease, extravagance, and notoriety by pretending to be possessed of more than human powers, have been found treading on common sense and Revelation by practising these impositions.

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PBEPACE.

Only twelve years after our Lord's crucifixion, Josephus informs us, Padus, being Procurator of Judea, a certain impostor, called Theudas, persuaded a very great multitude, taking their effects with them, to follow him to the River Jordan, assuring them that he was a Prophet, and that causing the river to divide at his command, he would give them an easy passage over ; but Padus sent out a troop of horse, who, coming upon them unexpectedly, slew many and took many prisoners. Theudas himself was among the last-mentioned. They cut off his head and brought it to Jerusalem.*

Shortly after this, Simon Magus, whom we read of in the Acts of the Apostles, made his appearance in the world and attempted to deceive the people by tricks of legerdemain, intermixing with his blasphemous doctrines some slight fragments of the christian religion, but making pretensions beyond all bounds, declaring himself to be the Almighty, who appeared in Samaria as the Pather — in Judea, as the Son — and in other nations as the Holy G-host.

During the first few centuries after the establishment of the christian religion, several hundred false christs and false prophets arose, who endeavoured to draw away the minds of pious and humble believers from the truth, and lead them to embrace their own horrible and abominable errors; and since that period, in every age, a number of shallow-brained fanatics have made nearly the same pretensions, all verifying to the very letter the prophecy of the Saviour, that false prophets should rise and should deceive many.f

* Ant. B. 20. Chap. 5. 1. t Matthew, Chap. 24, Verse ii.

PEEEACE.

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The most notorious of these in our day are Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Bigdon, Orson Spencer, and a few others, calling themselves Mormonites, or, Latter-Day Saints, who are, however, hut secondary prophets, their great primary one being Joseph Smith ; but, notwithstanding this, their pretensions to inspiration — the gift of prophecy — and other supernatural powers, are nearly as great as those who lived in former ages, and, I need not add, equally preposterous and wicked.

In the following lectures I have endeavoured to investigate the grounds upon which they base their pretensions, giving a brief sketch of their origin and history ; an examination of various passages of scripture, said to be prophetic of the discovery of the Book of Mormon ; a review of the contents of the new revelation ; and a glance at the gifts with which they tell us their church is endowed ; intending to shew that the marks of imposture are plainly written upon all their doings and proceedings, How far I have been successful in that respect the reader must be the judge.

The vain and boasted pretensions of these men, by which they have led astray and deceived many of the most heedless and thoughtless amongst the ignorant and uneducated, are not everything that we behold in connexion with them, calculated to produce injury upon society wherever they go : their doctrines are equally bad, being entirely opposed both to reason and scripture, and of a nature just adapted to lead their votaries to atheism and infidelity. Never was a more infidel doctrine preferred in society, than that of the Eternity of Matter, as held in common by Latter-Day Saints and unbelievers in the existence of Deity. To this I have

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PEEFACE.

given some consideration, endeavouring to shew the falsity of the statement so frequently made, both by atheists and mormonites, that it is based upon science. Their other sentiments are equally opposed to the teaching of scripture and the dictates of common sense. Their views of the person of Grod are horrible in the extreme, and their notions of the state of the dead are more nearly allied to popery than anything I ever met with out of the Eomish Church.

All these considerations will I am satisfied be considered a sufficient apology, by those who value true religion and abhor imposture and error, for the appearance of the present work.

Gr. SEXTON.

London,

LECTURE I.

The subject that I have to bring before your notice this evening, as you have already been given to understand, is Mormonism ; or an investigation of the pretensions and doctrines of the Latter Day Saints, a people who have arisen in America within these last few years, headed by an individual, professing to be a prophet of the most High, who has received various revelations from heaven ; and a commission from the eternal world, to establish a new religion on the earth, which shall supersede all the forms of Christianity at present in existence amongst the various sects of professing christians. As this is a subject connected with religion, and consequently with our eternal state, it demands our serious consideration, candid investigation, and deliberate reflection.

The advocates of this new system tell us that all other denominations are in error — that they alone are the true church — that they possesss the powers and gifts communicated from heaven to the primitive christians — that their founder received his commission direct from the Deity, by means of an angel — and that all who do not believe in him must expect the terrible wrath of an offended God to be poured out upon them. ISTow it certainly is of a vast amount of importance for us to know what the Lord would have us to do, and what is His will concerning us, — whether the doctrines revealed in the Book of Mormon, and taught by the Latter Day Saints, are true or false ; and whether we are, therefore, bound to receive the new revelation, rejecting the doctrines we have been accustomed to believe perfect and correct, or to retain our former opinions, and denounce Mormonism as a heresy. The great apostle of the Gentiles has advised us to prove all things, taking care at the same time to hold fast that which is good ; and has also informed us that if an angel from heaven should visit earth, to preach any other doctrines than those which he taught us, we were to reject them, and the administrator should be accursed. There is an old adage, magni est Veritas et prcevalebit, and believing this, I come forward this evening to investigate the principles and precepts recommended to our notice by the followers of Joseph Smith, well knowing that, if they be true, they will triumph, and overcome all the opposition that can be raised against them, either by men or demons ; but, if false, will fall, in spite of the efforts and exertions of their most zealous and enthusiastic advocates, for

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again, The eternal years of God are tier's ;

But error wounded writhes in pain, And dies amid her worshippers.

With an earnest desire for a knowledge of the truth I first examined the doctrines of the Latter Day Saints, bearing in mind that proverb of the wis€ man, " he who judgeth a matter before he heareth it is a fool," and, although I may, from previous investigation, be quite decided myself, as to their truth or falsity, yet knowing that many of you are not, I will, in as brief a manner as possible, bring before you the leading features and fundamental points, with the professed evidence given of their validity, in order that you may judge for yourselves, and may not be led away by the plausible pretensions of those whose interest teaches them to deceive.

It is my firm opinion that the Mormonitish preachers have one set of doctrines for unbelievers and another for converts ; that they hold out a kind of golden bait, to entrap the unguarded and thoughtless ; but, having once made sure of their prey, the curtain is drawn aside, the white robe falls off, and all the horrible and abominable doctrines are then exposed to view. This is rather a harsh statement to make, and much stronger than I should feel justified in making, did I not believe it to be as true as the gospel and word of Grod. The way I came to such a conclusion was this — I read their works through and through again, I made myself thoroughly acquainted with all the principles and precepts contained in them. I then attended their preaching, expecting to hear similar doctrines to those which had been unfolded to my view in the various works I had read. But, oh !

judge of ray surprise when I heard nothing of the kind — when I found the Book of Mormon (without which the Bible had been represented as being useless) together with all the most important doctrines left out of the question, and the chief things talked of were repentance, faith, &c. points of doctrine upon which they differ but little from the majority of Christians. This convinced me that their plan was to let the public into the light of one doctrine at a time, attempting to make converts of persons, admitting them into their church by plunging them over head and ears in water, and laying on of hands for the receiving of the Holy Grhost and spiritual gifts, before they informed them all that was behind the scene. I venture to say that if some of you have attended their preaching ever since you were made acquainted with the fact that there were such people in existence, you have never heard the secrets that I will disclose to your view in these Lectures.

But, to come to the main question, the Latter-Day Saints (so called) profess to have received a new revelation from Grod to man, superseding that which we have been accustomed to look upon as superior to any thing that ever was or ever will be written — The New Testament. They tell us that Heaven has again deigned to hold converse with Earth, and that another communication from the Supreme Majesty on high to his finite creatures has been granted. That revelation and communication is the Book of Mormon. When the divine Redeemer of the world was asked on one occasion by a young man what should be done in order to gain eternal life, he pointed the inquirer first to the old J ewish law, as the one in which he had been trained and educated, but finding that he had externally conformed to all the rites and ceremonies enjoined by that first and but typical law, he then directed him to a new and superior one, to a better dispensation, and to a more spiritual worship than that which he had previously been acquainted with, viz. Christianity and the New Testament. But the enlightenment of the Latter-Day Saints would tell us neither to study the Old or New Testament, for if we did we should not be able to understand it ; but to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the superior doctrines and precepts contained in the Book of Mormon. And what, you ask, in the name of all that is good, is the Book of Mormon ? "Where did it come from ? Who wrote it ? When was it indited, &c. &c. Oh ! to ask questions of that kind savours more of infidelity than religion. May not Grod give you a revelation without informing you how he gave it, or disclosing to you the secret connected with its origin ? Tou answer, and answer rightly, yes, if at the same time he had deprived us of reason and intellect, but while he has endowed us with both, and mental culture and education to boot, certainly not. Well, then the Book of Mormon came from Grod. By the bye not from heaven but out of the earth, a kind of geological or cosmological treasure, instead of a celestial one. We have heard of a reverend gentleman, who maintains that the locality where the spirits of those who are dead reside is in the earth, telling us that the Hebrew term sclieol, and the Greek adees, indicate some place in the centre of the earth, which is inhabited not by mortal beings, but by immaterial spirits, but never before heard of a revelation from Grod coming out of the earth.

However, Grod has never yet given a revelation of his will to mankind without giving with it evidence of its truth ; and, consequently, if we judge of the future from the past, we may expect that if the Book of Mormon be the word of Grod, we shall not have to search long before we shall discover plenty of evidence of its being so. If revelations from the Creator brought with them no evidence of their truth, we should never be able to determine what was of Grod and what of Satan — what true and what false — as the world in which we are placed contains a multiplicity of opinions, both true and false ; and the advocates of each tell us that they are right and every other person in error ; for instance, the Hindoo points to the Shaster, and exclaims Behold the word of Grod. The Mahometan holds up the Koran, and cries This is the only and true revelation of Deity. WTiile the Christian takes his Bible, and clasping it to his breast, exclaims In thee alone has Grod revealed himself to mankind. jS"ow if there were no evidence to be found in proof of the truth of one of these books more than the others, we should be bound by the rules of consistency either to reject the whole or receive them all. But, as we have evidence of the truth of the Christian Scriptures, which cannot be brought for either Alkoran or the Shaster, we receive the one and reject the other two. Thus wisely God has acted in giving us evidence, and intellects to judge of it, instead of leaving us in the dark to grope our way without the possibility of knowing whether we were right or wrong. So then, if the Book of Mormon comes from God, either in the place of the Bible or in addition to it, we expect it will bring with it an amount of evidence which its greatest opponents shall not be able to gainsay, otherwise it will be of little use for it to come at all.

The followers of Joseph Smith should remember that they are not the only people who have laid claim to divine inspiration — that their founder is not the only man who has pretended to receive communications from the God of heaven — and that the Book of Mormon is not the only book that has been given us under the pretence of its being an appendix to the sacred oracles of divine and unerring truth. Both ancient and modern history abound with instances of a similar kind. Amongst the Mahometans many have pretended to have been inspired by the spirit of the great Arabian impostor ; and, in pagan nations, by the spirits of their wooden idols. Since the origin of the grand and glorious doctrines of Christianity, we have had hundreds of individuals on every hand pretending to the gifts of prophecy, m : racle working, and divine inspiration ; and in many cases they have carried their fanaticism to such an extent as to declare themselves Sons of God, Messiahs, &c. I will just give a brief sketch of a few of them.

In Germany, in the year 1525, one of those individuals made his appearance, named Thomas Munzer. He declared himself to be an inspired prophet, and the instrument chosen by Christ to bring about His millenial reign on the earth. He professed to have direct intercourse with the Deity, and placed himself on a level with the prophets and apostles of old. His followers at one time became very numerous and at last their fanaticism led them to believe that, they being the peculiar favourites of heaven, ought to hold the reins of government ; they,

B therefore, organized themselves into an army, for the express purpose of overtarning all the governing powers in existence — uprooting the institutions depending thereon — nullifying the laws of the land — and making a complete revolution in the country. However, an army coming against them, they were soon overcome, several thousands being slain and the rest put to flight.

About five or six years after this two other individuals arose, making nearly the same pretensions, one, a tailor, named Boccoldt, a native of Leyden, and, therefore, called John of Leyden, and the other, a baker, of Haerlem, named John Matthias. They began to spread their doctrines in Munster, the capital of "Westphalia, where they soon gained a number of followers. They declared themselves to be chosen of God, to establish a spiritual kingdom, which should hold in subjection to its authority all the kingdoms of the earth. But, spiritual as this kingdom was represented to be, Matthias and Boccoldt considered temporal powers the best, and the wielding of a temporal sceptre, the most successful for their purpose, so they organized an army, and attacked the city of Munster. Them army being rather powerful, they deposed the magistrates and took the city, which they named Mount Zion, and John Matthias was now proclaimed its king. "While holding the regal power, he declared himself to be Enoch the second, high priest of God, and made various other idle and wicked pretensions, all of which tended to the enriching of himself. Shortly after this, however, in an encounter, this soi disant monarch was slain, and his coadjutor, John Boccoldt, became his successor to the royal dignity, under whose guidance the people were led to wilder excesses in fanaticism than they had been by Matthias. He held that the custom of polygamy was lawful, and to show his own favourable opinion of it at one time he married nearly a dozen wives. He and his followers frequently ran naked through the city, crying wo ! wo ! wo ! and when requested by some of their friends, and others, to dress themselves, they refused, saying, as an excuse, " we are the naked truth." It was communicated to John of Leyden, in one of his visions, that several other cities were given to him, and consequently he sent some of his fanatical followers to establish his kingdom there, but? they not being sufficiently numerous, were defeated, and many of them put to a cruel death. After this the rightful owner to the throne of Munster came against the city with an army, besieged it, and took John Boccoidt and put him to death. Thus ended the career of this impostor and fanatic.

To John of Leyden, succeeded a cobbler, named Herman, who professed to be the Son of God. History also gives us an account of an impostor, of Amsterdam, named Theodore, and known by the cognomen of Theodore of Amsterdam, who ran naked through the city, and held nearly the same tenets as the aforementioned personages.

In the year 1556 we have the appearance of another individual of this class, whose blasphemous pretensions were surprising, named David George. He pretended to be not merely a prophet of Grod, (this office was not sufficiently exalted for him,) but the true Messiah, sent down from heaven. He taught that he was invested with authority to bind and loose, and that at the last day he should be a judge — that the prophets and apostles, and even Christ himself, predicted his coming — and that without his writings the scriptures would be useless.

About a century after this, being in the year 1657, an Englishman, a tailor by trade, named Lodowick Muggleton, and an associate of his, named Reeves, began to declare themselves to be the Lord's two last witnesses, mentioned in the Revelations of St. John, who were to precede the second coming of Christ, and the universal conflagration. They, like all the rest, pretended to dream dreams, see visions, work miracles, and a thousand other species of religious enthusiasm, but never attained any very considerable eminence. Their followers were few in number, and their fame very short lived.

JSor have those mighty powers, gifts, and blessings been confined to the male sex, but occasionally we have had one of the lady portion of our race laying claim to the powers of prophecy, miracle working, divine inspiration, etc. Still we should have supposed that they would be much more mild in their denunciations

b 2 than the opposite sex, and, therefore, less objectionable, We should have thought that combined with their mild and gentle dispositions — their soft and winning ways — their loving and affectionate turn of mind — we should have looked in vain for that bigotry and sectarianism, which marked the career of the male fanatics, but such is really not the case. The females were (if possible) ten times more intolerant than the men, The first of this class that we shall turn our attention to is one of our own countrywomen, who made a great stir about fifty years ago, I refer now to Johanna Southcott, a name which undoubtedly is familiar to most of you, as her fanatical and enthusiastic career is well known to most persons in the country. She was born in Devonshire, about the year 1750, of poor and humble parents, but towards the latter end of her life she arose to great affluence and wealth, by pretending to divine inspiration, and thus deceiving the ignorant and uneducated. During the early part of her life, she was employed as a domestic servant, and, from the testimony of persons who knew her, we learn that she was little superior to an idiot or a lunatic, but in later years there seem to have entered into her disposition a vast amount of ambition, which, uniting itself with the former defective intellectual capacity, produced in her mind that fanaticism manifested to such an extent during the remainder of her life. She has written a number of pamphlets, all of which contain such a mass of ignorance, folly and superstition as is seldom to be seen combined together.

She declared that she was sent from heaven, to prophesy respecting the future state of the world, and to publish to mankind the dreadful judgments that God was about to bring upon them, for not obeying his laws, which laws were contained in the revelations she had received. Her followers assert that the bible, without her writings, is of no value whatever, as no person can understand it; saying that the new testament was given as an exposition of the old, and the books of Mrs. Southcott as exposition of the new. They tell us that when the judgments of the Almighty shall take place on the earth, which she had been, year after year, predicting, they alone are to be spared; their protection being a seaij folded in a letter, given them by Johanna, which was not to be opened by them. She gives ns to understand that she is to have 144,000, of these sealed ones, which is the number spoken of in the [Revelations of St. John, she being the woman there described, as clothed with the sun, having the moon beneath her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars — that she was commanded by the Spirit of God to choose seven men, who are her seven saints, answering to the seven Spirits before the throne of God — and also, that she should select twentyfour persons from her disciples, answering to the twentyfour elders mentioned in the apocalypse, as being before the throne of God. She was, of course, in the habit of dreaming dreams, seeing visions, and frequently hearing the voice of God speak to her in an audible manner.

She prophesied, respecting the future state of the French and English nations, describing to a nicety various mighty events that were about to take place in this country and on the Continent. The state of Prance, at that period, formed excellent matter for her predictions ; many important occurrences she described very minutely, four or five years after the events had taken place, pretending that the prophesies had been uttered before, but that no person had heeded them, — a very convenient excuse to make. Her works are written chiefly in poetry, some of which may be termed pretty good, but a great deal of which is complete stuff, and even that, which, as poetry, is good, contains matter far from being so. Some of her followers have described her poetry as being equal to that of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, etc., but that is certainly overrating her abilities to a wonderful extent. During the last year or two of her life, her mad fanaticism was carried to a much greater extent than it had previously been, as she then proclaimed herself to be enceinte by the power and influence of the divine Saviour of the world. This was certainly carrying her blasphemous pretensions to the farthest possible extent. She asserted that Christ was not the child promised to Eve, in the words of the Almighty, " the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head," etc^ but that this prophesy should be fulfilled in the birth of the Shiloh of her. She expected to be delivered on the

b3 night of the nineteenth of October, 1814, she being thea 64 years of age. One medical gentleman who saw her seems to have been greatly deceived, as he had quite satisfied himself that she was with child. But Mr, Mathias, the surgeon who attended her, gave her great offence, by stating that such was not the case, but that all her symptoms resulted from certain diseases, with which she was afflicted, which, upon the dissection of the body, really turned out to be the case. Her infatuated followers, believing in her idle tales and superstitious whims, respecting the birth of this child, went to the expense of purchasing a silver cradle for the expected Messiah. On the evening of the anticipated birth, large numbers of people flocked together around her dwelling to listen for the tidings of the long talked of result. But nothing occurred until the 27th of December following, when, instead of being delivered of a child, Mrs. Southcott passed out of this world into another. Her followers, having had such faith in pretensions, could scarcely be induced to believe her dead, nor would they consent to bury her, until her body began to be offensive, from decomposition, and even then they consigned her to the tomb, with the firm faith that shortly she would rise again, and verify all her predictions. But she has lain, quiet enough, in the tomb up to the present moment, and as she has not risen to give birth to the promised Shiloh, her disciples, part of them contend that the child was born and caught up to heaven immediately, and the others that she meant a spiritual child, and not a literal one at all. ~No doubt }^ou will be surprised that there should still be found people so weak as to believe her silly pretensions, but such is the case, her followers being now almost as numerous as ever they were, and only about two years since a popular female disciple of Johanna, named Mrs. Vaune, went round London, with a petition to be presented to the Almighty for the binding of the devil, which she stated God would accomplish as soon as there were a sufficient number of names enrolled thereon. I do not know the number required, but when I saw it there were a great many written upon it, Another of the class of Lady Prophets arose in Bohemia, named Wilhelmina, and was therefore called

"Wilhelmina of Bohemia, whose pretensions were nearly the same as those of Johanna Southcott. She sueceded in making a large number of people believe that the Holy Spirit had become incarnate in her, to save a great part of the human family, viz. those who did not believe in Christianity, such as Jews, Pagans, Mahometans, and Infidels, while she confined the merits of Christ's death to believing Christians.

Ann Lee, another female fanatic, who was born in this country, but went to America to set up the trade of prophesying, made a considerable stir in New York, about the year 1776. Like Johanna Southcott, she declared herself to be the woman spoken of in the twelfth chapter of the Revelations of St. John. She professed to hold converse with the dead — have the gift of tongues* — work miracles — receive communications direct from heaven — and taught likewise that she should never die, However, her departure from this life completely proved the falsity of the last statement, although it did not convince her deluded followers that she was an impostor.