GENERAL SALVATION.
In answer to the questions with which the last chapter closed, I may
say that however difficult it may be to comprehend fully all things
connected with man's fall, and God's plan for his redemption, we may be
assured that the fall was not a blunder, nor was it an accident. The
prophet Lehi bowed down under the weight of years, when giving his last
testimony and instructions to his son Jacob, said: "Behold, all things
have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell
that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."[A]
[Footnote A: II Nephi II: 24, 25.]
All that has befallen man, we may rest assured, is essential to his
eternal and perfect happiness. From our limited experience, we know
that men learn to appreciate the joys of prosperity by drinking deeply
from the cup of adversity; they learn to prize the boon of health, by
languishing upon the bed of affliction; they learn the value of wealth,
by experiencing want and poverty; the sweets of life are rendered still
more sweet by the draughts of bitterness we are compelled to drink; and
the ever intermittent gleams of sunshine are made more bright by the
renewing storms which darken the sky; and thus--
"Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up, Whose golden rounds are
our calamities."
As it is with these things I have mentioned, so it is in respect to the
greatest blessing Deity can bestow upon man--the gift of eternal life.
How great that gift, it is difficult for us to understand. It is not to
live merely three score years, nor a thousand years, nor ten thousand
years, but eternally; and while
"The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and
nature sink in years; Man shall flourish in immortal youth. Unhurt
amid the war of elements, The wreck of matter and the crash of
worlds."--
But in order that his children might know how to prize the greatest
of all his gifts. Deity has ordained that they should pass through
the dark valley of death; and in the meantime, by passing through
this probation we call life, they might have the opportunity of
demonstrating before the heavens their integrity to principles of
righteousness and truth; and by coming in contact with evil, they might
forever prize that which is pure and good: that vice might ever be
hideous to them, and virtue lovely--and thus the eternal happiness of
man be made secure. Thus with death, as with many other things, that
which at times we consider our greatest calamity, turns out to be our
greatest good.
As to the second question[B]--How is it that through the sacrifice
of one who is innocent salvation may be purchased for those under
the dominion of death?--I will observe, in passing, that what should
most concern us, is, not so much _how_ it is that such is the case, but
is it a _fact_. Is it true that God has established such a scheme of
redemption, is what should concern us most.
[Footnote B: See Discourse of J. Taylor, J. of D. vol 10, p. 114.]
To that question the blood sprinkled upon a thousand Jewish altars,
and the smoke that darkened the heavens for ages from burnt offerings,
answers yes. For those sacrifices, and that sprinkled blood were but
typical of the great sacrifice to be made by the Messiah.
Even the mythology of heathen nations retains the idea of an atonement
that either has been, or is to be made for mankind. Fantastic,
distorted, confused; buried under the rubbish of savage superstition it
may be, but it nevertheless exists. So easily traced, so distinct is
this feature of heathen mythology, that some writers have endeavored
to prove that the gospel plan of redemption was derived from heathen
mythology. Whereas the fact is that the Gospel was understood and
extensively preached in the earliest ages;[C] men retained in their
tradition a knowledge of those principles or parts of them, and however
much they may have been distorted, traces of them may still be found in
nearly all the mythologies of the world.
[Footnote C: See Pearl of Great Price, Writings of Moses, pp. 12 to
31. Gal iii, 8. Heb. iv, 2, in connection with latter part of chap iii.
I Cor. X, 1-4. Mediation and Atonement by the late Prest. John Taylor
--Appendix.]
The prophets of the Jewish scriptures answer the foregoing question
in the affirmative. The writers of the New Testament make Christ's
Atonement the principal theme of their discourses and epistles. The
Book of Mormon, speaking as the voice of an entire continent of people,
whose prophets and righteous men sought and found God, testifies to the
same great fact. The revelations of God as given through the Prophet
Joseph Smith are replete with passages confirming this doctrine, and
lastly, the Saints who have received this doctrine and walked in
obedience to the laws of heaven, bear testimony that the Spirit of God
has borne record to their spirits that the Atonement of Christ is a
grand reality.
This evidence is more than sufficient, it seems to me, to establish the
_fact_ of the atonement beyond the possibility of a doubt; and if there
are some things in it not within the scope of our comprehension, still
there is sufficient foundation for our glorious hope of eternal life
through its power; for the evidence proving the fact of that Atonement
is sufficient, wanting nothing, either in quality or quantity.
The Atonement is not the only fact which man accepts without being
able to comprehend it. Such facts exist all about us. For example,
here stands a row of trees; here is the plum tree, the peach, pear,
apple, cherry and the apricot. They send their roots down into the
same soil; their fibres become interlaced in it; and yet each tree has
the mysterious power to draw from the same soil the substances which
produce its own peculiar fruit. So it is throughout the vegetable
kingdom. But how it is that the peach tree produces the peach, while
the plum tree, from the same soil, produces the plum; or how one plant
produces wheat, while another at its side produces barley, we cannot
tell. But there is the fact; and how stupid would he be considered
who rejected the fact, because, forsooth, he cannot understand the
mysterious powers or forces which produce it!
As Bishop Watson remarks to Sir Edward Gibbon, in the letters which
comprise his Apology for Christianity:--"In physics you cannot
comprehend the primary cause of anything: not of the light by which you
see; nor of the elasticity of the air by which you hear; nor of the
fire by which you are warmed. In physiology you cannot tell what first
gave motion to the heart, nor what continues it, nor why its motion
is less voluntary than the lungs; nor why you are able to move your
arms to the right or left by a simple volition; * * * nor comprehend
the principle by which your body was at first formed, nor by which
it is sustained, nor by which it will be reduced to earth." The list
might be indefinitely extended, for the facts in nature which are
incomprehensible are more numerous than those of revelation. And yet
those who insist that all the facts connected with revelation should
be of such a character that they are perfectly comprehended, refuse
not to accept the facts in nature because they are incomprehensible.
Why cannot they treat with equal fairness the facts of revelation and
leave it to time and further revelation to make that clear which is now
obscure?