THE REDEMPTION OF ZION--ENOCH'S CITY TO RETURN--OBJECT OF THE UNITED
ORDER--CAUSE OF THE JACKSON COUNTY EXPULSION--THE WHEAT FROM THE
CHAFF.
The redemption of Zion! The building of the new Jerusalem!
Theme of the ancient prophets and glory of the latter days!
Such was the sublime mission given to the Saints of the Most High.
Thus came the word of the Lord concerning it, March, 1831:
"Wherefore, I, the Lord, have said, gather ye out from the eastern
lands, assemble ye yourselves together ye elders of my Church; go
ye forth into the western countries; * *
"And with one heart and with one mind, gather up your riches that
ye may purchase an inheritance which shall hereafter be appointed
unto you,
"And it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city
of refuge, a place of safety for the Saints of the Most High God;
"And the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the
Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come
unto it, and it shall be called Zion.
"And it shall come to pass, among the wicked, that every man that
will not take his sword against his neighbor, must needs flee unto
Zion for safety.
"And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under
heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war
one with another.
"And it shall be said among the wicked, let us not go up to battle
against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore
we cannot stand.
"And it shall come to pass that the righteous shall be gathered
out from among all nations, and shall come to Zion, singing with
songs of everlasting joy."
With this glorious object in view, this sublime motive firing their
souls and filling their hearts with holy zeal, the Saints, in the
summer of 1831, had commenced gathering upon the land of Zion--Jackson
County, Missouri, the chosen site of the great city and temple of God.
Their purpose, to fulfil prophecy, to found the modern Zion, New
Jerusalem, capital city of the kingdom of God. A counterpart of the
Zion of Enoch, sanctified of old and taken into the heavens, to return
in latter times as a leaven of righteousness, to leaven this lump of
clay, the mother earth of our mortality, and make it like unto itself,
and in due time a glorified planet, purified, redeemed, and from sin
forever free.
To prepare the world for that supreme hour "when the Lord shall bring
again Zion," was and is the mission of the Saints of latter days. And
this that the scripture might be fulfilled, which says:
"The Lord hath brought down Zion from above.
"The Lord hath brought up Zion from beneath.
"The earth hath travailed and brought forth her strength:
"And truth is established in her bowels:
"And the heavens have smiled upon her:
"And she is clothed with the glory of her God:
"For he stands in the midst of his people."
The meeting of the Zions! The marriage of the worlds! Zion from
beneath, the type of truth from earth, embracing Zion from above, the
symbol of righteousness from heaven.
"And they twain shall be one!"
Preparatory to this miraculous event, and indeed to render it
possible, the order of Enoch, the system of divine economy whereby the
Zion of the ancients was redeemed and sanctified, had been newly
revealed to the Zion-builders of the last days.
What says Moses of Enoch and his city?
"And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one
heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no
poor among them."
Oh, the sweetness of those simple words! Oh, the sublimity of the
picture they portray! Liberty, equality, fraternity! This is Zion--THE
PURE IN HEART!
But the Saints in Jackson County, Missouri, were not all that the Lord
requires of a people chosen to execute a purpose so sacred, so
sublime. "There were jarrings, and contentions, and envyings, and
strifes, and lustful and covetous desires among them; therefore by
these things they polluted their inheritances." Then was the lash of
the Philistine applied, and they were driven forth from the goodly
land. Satan hath his mission, as well as Christ.
Be it not inferred, however, that these hapless victims of mobocratic
tyranny were utterly wicked and depraved, or that all were equally
culpable in the eyes of Him, who, to punish the transgressors,
permitted their enemies to come against them. With all their faults
they were better far than their oppressors, more than the peers, in
every Christian virtue, of the people of the world around them. Yet,
judged by the higher law, the Gospel standard, which the world had not
received, and were not under the same obligation to obey, these
"children of the Light" were found remiss in many things.
The Kingdom of heaven is likened unto a field of grain, gathered unto
the threshing-floor. The purpose of divine punishment is to purify.
Upon the wheat and the chaff, alike, fell the iron flail of
persecution.