in quick succession. Even as a chalk-line makes an impression for
the saw and the chisel, so God's judgments will make an impression,
sensible and summary. The day of vengeance has long been in His heart.
A day when His jealousy and wrath shall burn like fire, even to the
lowest hell. The wicked and diabolical spirits will be pursued, even
to their dens of darkness, and there scourged and bound. The righteous
veterans that have long since fought and bled, in order to establish
a reign of righteousness and truth on the earth, and prayed with
uplifted hands for this day of truth and judgment, their language is,
"How long, O Lord, wilt thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell
on the earth?" But God, who is long-suffering--not willing that any
should perish, but rather that they should repent and be saved--has
nevertheless reserved the worst spirits to the day of wrath and the
revelation of the righteous judgment of God. That day is even now
dawned. God has commenced to reveal his wrath against all them that
obey not the gospel. It is a day of revelation and prophecy.
The righteous are timely advised to gather out and separate themselves
from those that will not obey the gospel. They are not disobedient to
the great revelation of mercy to them that obey, and of wrath to them
that are contentious and obey not the truth. The winds and waves are
wafting thousands to the land of refuge. The prairies and wilderness
reverberate with the songs of the outcast but chosen and elect ones
of God. A more intelligent, enterprising, and bold race of Saints,
perhaps, has never been summoned to the help of the Lord against the
mighty, since the foundation of the world. Their fortitude, patience,
and invincibility are indelibly written in their bloodstained pathway
through Missouri and Illinois. The old arts of tormenting the sick
by burning their houses, and of famishing the robust by plundering
their crops, and forcing the sale of property by threats of murder and
arson, are fruitless. Prison walls and tragic scenes of assassination
and expatriation have spent their fury to no purpose. The daring
sons of Pharaoh, Cain, and Judas are baffled and confounded at such
godlike firmness. Occasionally a priest, goaded on by the loss of his
flock, has dared to act as champion, and throw the gauntlet for public
discussion, but the inevitable discomfiture that has followed, has
taught him the superior policy of evading discussion. But, dear sir, no
man can long be a neutral in this warfare. He must choose his side. If
truth fails to bring down high looks, judgments will not fail. Those
judgments which begun at the house of God, in Kirtland, Independence,
and Nauvoo, have been seriously felt by the Saints of God. But if the
righteous scarcely escape, where shall the sinner and ungodly appear?
The latter-day judgments that shall befall their enemies will be far
more insupportable and abiding.
There was no part of the United States ignorant of the murderous doings
of their countrymen towards the Latter-day Saints. The news spread over
the continent, and reached even the remote islands of the Pacific with
almost telegraphic speed. Nobody that loved justice, or felt the bowels
of humanity, had the least need to be ignorant of the distress, and
famine, and sickness, and nakedness that were inflicted on the innocent
worshippers of the only true God by their countrymen. Presidents and
governors, judges and lawyers, priests, physicians, and common people,
all were made acquainted with the diabolical outrages. They were not
only warned but _forewarned_. What has been the consequence? For the
last sixteen years the fluctuations of business have been like the
troubled ocean. Panic and depression have been as successive as light
and darkness, with the exception of incalculable irregularity and
confusion. In the place of wealth there has followed bankruptcy; for
peace, national war; and for the blood of one murdered servant of God,
there has been tens, and even hundreds, laid weltering in their gore.
Some of the best blood of the nation (so accounted) has been demanded
by Him that said, touch not my prophets and do my anointed no harm. The
word of the Lord to all Israel, on the eve of the Carthage tragedy,
was, if they (the enemy) begin to shed blood, the sword shall waste the
blood of the nation. And how are the sons of the mighty fallen? What
wailing and lamentation are heard from high places over distinguished
slaughtered Americans! And the end is not yet.
But what shall I say of time-honoured orthodoxy? Poor creature! Her
glory is being fast turned into shame. Many of her lovers are forsaking
her, and the balance are too sleepy to wake up. They refuse to be
fascinated, notwithstanding all her meritricious arts. Education,
tracts, missions, and moral reform, are a vain thing for strength. The
Lord is a jealous God, and will not give His glory to another gospel;
but he will curse all the systems of men that are built upon human
precepts merely, without the authority of immediate revelation. The
various systems of modern christianity are cursed already, wherever the
true gospel is proclaimed. That sincerity, fidelity, and zeal, which
your churches and your preachers once had, is taken away from them; and
your preachers have no longer power to preach with effect. The reason
and cause of all this is, the true light has come; consequently, they
have no longer any apology for upholding systems of error and false
religions. The Spirit of God will be withdrawn from your ministry and
your churches, just in proportion as the true light shines and the true
gospel is rejected.
When the devout Jews rejected the novel doctrines of Jesus and his
apostles, the virtues which they previously possessed either withered
up or were withdrawn from them, and communicated to Infidels or
Gentiles. So it is now. While the devout priests and churches reject
the gospel ministered by an angel to Joseph, and confirmed by the signs
following, their former virtuous principles forsake them. They become
filled with the spirit of envy, hatred, and malice towards the Saints.
They retail groundless slanders, and often are foremost in instigating
mobs, refusing common civilities and hospitality to the servants of
the Most High; and so sanguine is their opposition, that they even
believe it would be well for the cause of religion, if the Saints
were exterminated and put to death. So believed the devout Jews, who
persecuted the prophets and slew the Holy and Just One. Thus, by step
after step, the professedly pious are brought to become accessory to
blood-guiltiness, and bring upon themselves all the blood that has been
shed from the days of righteous Abel till now.
Oh! my much-loved friend, will you not shudder at the sight of such a
catastrophe before the modern churches? What an awful curse! Given up
by God to believe Saints to be sinners, and then to war against them
even to blood-guiltiness! Strange and deplorable infatuation! One would
think that the snares and pitfalls into which God precipitated ancient
persecutors, would prove an effectual warning to modern persecutors
to beware how they plunged themselves into a worse destruction! Oh,
how great the severity of God towards them that strive with their
Maker, and spurn the faith once delivered to the Saints as no longer
needed! The very _religion_ of modern christianity is now about as
great a curse as can be inflicted upon its possessors, without doing
violence to their power of agency. It is the prolific cause of judicial
blindness and hardness of heart. A false religion is worse than no
religion, because it is a lure and a lullaby, that excludes true
religion from taking effect.
Modern religion rejects immediate revelation; consequently, all that
knowledge that flows from visions and dreams, and the ministry of
angels, and the prophetic inspiration of the Holy Ghost. A greater
curse cannot well be conceived. There never was a people that lived
a hundred years, or even fifty years, without immediate revelation
from God, but they fell into gross darkness and contention, and those
hurtful lusts that drown men's souls in perdition. There never was a
people that survived the gift and blessing of immediate revelation
any considerable length of time, except they fell into idolatry and
worshipped strange gods; and their sorrows shall be multiplied that
hasten after strange gods. All Israel fell into the worship of Baal,
and hundreds of them became prophets to Baal. They, indeed, were
the descendants of the mightiest Saints that ever lived, such as
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, &c. They had in their possession
the writings and traditions of their fathers, but still they were
cursed because they rejected the knowledge of God through immediate
revelation. They became like blind men groping in the dark. They taught
their children to rebel against prophets and miraculous gifts.
Modern christians, with the Bible in their hands, are in as gross
darkness as the worshippers of Baal. The god they worship is no more
like the person of Christ, or the person of a man, than Baal was.
Their order of church authorities and church gifts, and ordinances of
healing and anointing, are probably about as remote from the apostolic
pattern, as the worship of Mahomet or Vishnu is. Do not believe, sir,
for a moment, that I intend, by this humiliating remark, any disrespect
to the supporters of modern christianity. No: God forbid. As good a
man as Paul the apostle was once as vehemently opposed to immediate
revelation and spiritual gifts as you are, or any other abettors of
modern christianity; but, by timely repentance, he escaped that awful
curse of aversion to the only means of knowing the only true and living
God. But multitudes of his countrymen still adhered to the belief that
the gift of revelation had ceased, and prophets and miracles were no
longer necessary. And you firmly believe that the curse indescribable
has followed them to this day. Oh! how astonishing it is that you, sir,
and your high-minded associates in modern christendom, should plunge
into the same doleful abyss--reject the same doctrines and ordinances,
as no longer necessary, and entail the same curse upon your children
for generations to come! In this you are fighting against Jehovah.
Every year and every day while you persist, the darkness of your minds
will become more gross, and you will bring the worst passions into the
field of conflict against the Saints. God will withdraw his Spirit
from you, and you will ultimately be forced, through weakness and
multiplied divisions and contentions, to unite the scattered fragments
of sectarianism on some common platform of anti-scriptural invention.
On this platform, and with this consolidated power of anti-Christ, the
great battle is destined to be fought that shall silence the spirit of
anti-revelation for a thousand years!
Alas! the deplorable destiny of those that war against prophets and
apostles, and the spirit and power of primitive godliness! Such, in all
former ages of the world, have been cursed with wars, conflagration,
famine, pestilence, and the vagaries of an oppressive superstition.
But, in the latter days, God has decreed a consumption upon the whole
earth. The religion that is not based on the immediate interposition of
the wisdom and power of God, from day to day, and time to time, will
not, cannot, and shall not stand, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it, and let all the inhabitants of the earth hear it. Yea, sir, such
religions shall be as the chaff which the wind driveth away, even as
the small dust of the threshing-floor. God despises the religion that
professes to flourish without the aid of constant revelation from the
heavens; and he will shoot out the hot arrows of his wrath against it,
until there is not a vestige or semblance of it left on the face of the
whole earth. The potsherds may strive with the potsherds of the earth,
but wo unto him that striveth with his Maker!
Alas the day, when God shall withdraw his Spirit from all flesh! Then
confidence between man and his fellow, will give place to distrust; and
jealousy, evil surmising, hatred, robbery, and blood-guiltiness will
spread their direful influence through all communities! The cords of
domestic union will be severed! The weak will be compelled to bow to
the yoke of the strong--might will become the strongest pretext for
right! The carcases of the poor and infirm will bleach uncovered upon
the earth! The stench of putrefaction will impregnate the atmosphere
with poisonous pestilence; insects and noisome creatures will breed
innumerably to the annoyance of man! "The sword shall devour from
one end of the earth to the other,--the earth shall be soaked in
blood,"--the rivers shall become bloody, and the fountains of water
shall no longer be pure. Many that lie down at night shall not awake
in the morning. The fruitful field shall become sterile and barren,
because no man knoweth for whom his fruits are growing. "The earth
becometh empty and desolate." The master and servant are brought to a
level. The priest is as void of consolation as the people. Paleness and
fear are depicted on every human face. Traffic in merchandize, as a
business, is wholly abandoned. Men cease to sow and to plough, in hope.
Never before did the Almighty commence such an awful warfare against
the inhabitants of the earth; never before was there witnessed such a
succession of plagues and dire calamities amongst men!
After peace is taken from the earth, an agent, by the name of Death
(probably invisible except to spirits and such as have the spirit
of revelation) will go forth on the face of the earth and destroy
one-fourth part of mankind. In the midst of this destruction of
one-fourth of mankind, martyred Saints will ask the Lord to hasten
the work of human destruction. An earthquake, and the lapse of stars
from heaven, then begin to destroy the frail tenure of human hope; and
even the great men, and mighty and chief captains become desperate,
like the most effeminate and pusillanimous. Every successive plague
is increasingly awful and unendurable. The plagues that fell upon
Egypt will sink into insignificance and fade out of memory before the
plagues which were shown to the revelator John, and which shall usher
in the final consummation of the "mystery of God." The opening of
the "bottomless pit" is followed with three woes which are inflicted
upon men, and which are suited to the incorrigible condition of such
obdurate spirits as no inferior engines of torment and destruction
could subdue. But neither the torment inflicted by the sting of the
locusts, like unto scorpions; nor that which is inflicted by the horses
of that great army of two millions, whose mouths emit fire, smoke, and
brimstone, and whose tails, being like serpents having heads, destroy
both before and behind wherever they go; yet none of these things will
lead these latter-day enemies to new revelations, unto repentance.
Now, sir, in conclusion, I have endeavoured, briefly, to direct
your mind to the vortex of indescribable calamities into which the
sentiments of modern christianity are calculated to precipitate all
who know not God (by immediate revelation), and obey not the gospel
revealed from heaven in this our day--a day of mercy and judgment.
With fervent desires that you and your posterity may escape the day of
wrath, and seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, I subscribe
myself
Your old friend and servant,
ORSON SPENCER.
LETTER XII.
ON THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS.
_Liverpool, November_ 14, 1847.
Reverend and Dear Sir.--THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS, is a subject
deserving rather a volumious treatise than the contracted limits of a
single letter; still some out-standing features of this very prominent
part of scripture revelation shall be briefly touched upon. _The
apostle says that the heavens must receive (Jesus) until the times of
the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of
all his holy prophets since the world began_.
By the term restitution, the scriptures mean putting all things on a
permanent and righteous basis. All things are not, and never have been
on a righteous basis since the fall of Adam.
After the expulsion of Lucifer and his associates from heaven, order
and harmony were restored, and the everlasting system of progressive
intelligence and felicity again established on an immutable basis, so
far as heaven was concerned. And even among the third part of heaven,
drawn away by the apostacy of Lucifer, there might possibly have been
some persons capable of ultimate restoration in the interminable ages
of futurity. Of this, however, it may, perhaps, be said that no man
knoweth. No man, surely can know unless it is revealed to him from
heaven. The possibility, however, of redeeming all flesh from the
transgression laid upon mankind in this mortal state, through obedience
to the gospel, is abundantly revealed in the scriptures. However wrong
may have been the conduct and opinions of the inhabitants of the earth,
obedience to the gospel will reinstate them in the course of permanent
felicity, intelligence, and righteousness.
There are _particular_ and _set times_ for the restitution of all those
things which God has spoken of by the prophets. God hath spoken of the
subject of restitution by _all_ the prophets since the world began;
indeed there never was a prophet on the earth whose business did not
engage him more or less in the work of restitution. But long periods
have elapsed on the earth in which no prophets have been known. During
such periods the work of restitution has invariably ceased. Iniquity
and misery have been made to abound, and gross darkness has spread over
all people. But at _particular_ periods God would raise up prophets,
and then the work of restitution would commence and continue until the
prophets were slain or otherwise removed from the earth. It is during
such particular _times_ of restitution in the latter days, that even
Jesus himself may appear from the heavens, in order to give direction
and mighty impulse to the work of restitution. Noah was raised up
to stay the progress of wickedness and build up the waste places.
Wickedness was swept off the earth according to his prophecyings and
teachings, and a race of righteous men put in the place of the wicked
to people the earth. It was also a time of restitution when Abraham
was commissioned to reform mankind by truth and judgment, teaching
them to walk in the old paths of revelation and immediate and constant
intercourse with the heavens.
Again, in mercy God raised up Moses, and recommenced the same work of
restitution which was subsequently undertaken by John the Baptist,
under the immediate supervision of Jesus himself. But it was not
competent for any one prophet, in the short period of his ministry on
the earth, to set _everything_ right that was wrong; but each did what
he could, under existing circumstances, with the people with whom he
had to do. The spirit of revelation rested upon each successive prophet
to perform that work which was most fit and necessary to the age in
which he lived. No one could attend to all things; and many things are
yet to be revealed that have been kept secret since the foundation of
the world. No man has ever understood all those measures and principles
by which the human family can be brought to the highest degree of
perfection. The angels probably do not know them, and even the Son
himself did not know them, but the Father only.
The reign of a thousand years of righteousness will probably do much
to correct, ennoble, and exalt mankind, and beautify the works of his
hands, and felicitate all flesh. Whatever principles and measures
can contribute to exalt and felicitate mankind in the sight of the
heavens, is yet to be done. The profound philosophy and science of
the highest intelligences, with all the embellishments which art, and
taste, and genius can secure, are destined to become tributary to the
righteous; and when these things shall take place in the _times_ of the
restitution of _all things_, God will be crowned with ineffable glory
and honour, blessing and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen.
The spirit of apostacy has stripped and shorn true religion of all its
luscious and beautiful fruit, and left nothing scarcely but the naked
withered hulk of false _spirituality_. Religion has been taught, by
protestant dissenters, as a science almost wholly abstracted from civil
government--from political, social, and domestic institutions, and also
from the useful and fine arts. It has been circumscribed to the most
revoltingly contracted limits.
In the zeal of its advocates to put down an illegitimate and bastardly
union of church and state, that had long darkened the moral atmosphere
of the earth, and made nations groan under oppression, and sigh and
mourn that religion was the wedded ally of the civil sceptre, they
pushed off into the opposite extreme of imbecile, naked, and sterile
spirituality; thereby proving, plainly, that any religion that is not
based on constant and immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, can
neither walk long with or without the crutches of governmental aid and
support. It will not only become a stink in the nostrils of Jehovah,
but soon cause great dissatisfaction and fall into merited contempt and
ignominy.
The best biographies of such men as David Brainard and Edward Payson,
is a fair exhibition of internal mental turmoil, and fitful commotion
of spirit, and servile bondage to a law that neither they nor their
fathers could keep. 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.
The islands shall flee, and continents be united, and the waters be
restored to their proper bounds, no more to break over their proper
barriers. The curse shall be clean removed from the earth, and the air
shall become salubrious and delightful. The animal race shall cease
from their animosity and virulence of temper. The lion and the lamb
shall lie down together; and there shall nothing hurt or destroy in
all God's holy mountain. In short, all things that are now wrong shall
be set right. Human life shall be prolonged: the infant shall die an
hundred years old. The power and perpetuity of life will be secured
to the ultimate extinction of death from off the earth. Death, the
last enemy, will be conquered and swallowed up in victory. When every
form and power of sin ceases, may we not expect that death will also
cease? Death hath passed upon all men in that all have sinned. Sin is
the sting of death and the cause of it. It is true that Jesus died,
although he never sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression;
but he took upon him Adam's nature, and became sin for us, though he
knew no sin. But it was not possible for him to be holden of death, or
to see corruption, because he was holy.
When a holy seed shall be raised up from the loins of the righteous,
which know no sin (which will be the case when the devil is bound),
then their bodies will not see corruption. They shall not all sleep
(or die), but they shall be changed. Those who partake of the curse
of Adam will be changed in a moment, without knowing corruption; but
the posterity of such as are changed will be the legitimate heirs of
sanctified bodies, upon whom death has no conceivable claim. Death
will not pass upon them because they have not sinned. Their bodies
are generically spiritual and holy, like Christ's own most glorious
body. Then will the seeds of death become extinguished from the human
body, and man will stand as holy and pure as in his pristine creation,
blooming with health, vigour, and immortality. Then he is prepared to
hold intercourse with the heavens, and to reign with Christ on the
earth.