INDIVIDUAL SALVATION.
Having dealt with what I called General Salvation, I now turn to
Individual Salvation. You have seen that man is redeemed from the evils
brought upon him through Adam's sin, without any act of belief or
obedience being required of him. This is because his agency or will was
not exercised in breaking the law given to Adam. The calamity overtakes
him through no fault of his; and consequently his deliverance, so far,
comes without his seeking--in fact, it comes independent of him. In
this matter, man is passive, being acted upon by the relative claims of
Justice and Mercy.
But apart from the transgressions of our first parents, there is a
vast amount of sin, crime and corruption in the world. Envy, hatred,
malice, contention, evil-speaking, jealousy, and covetousness abound;
to say nothing of the greater evils of lying, drunkenness, stealing,
fornication, adultery, and debauchery of every description, which would
be improper even to name.
Selfishness is the starting point of the present system of
industrialism; chicanery and fraud enter into all the avenues of trade;
dishonesty walks the streets without shame; licentiousness revels in
its own wantonness; whoredoms are poisoning the life's blood of the
nations; prostitution flaunts its shame upon the streets, and takes up
its abode in the very shadow of the church, where men meet to worship
God. Instead of beautifying the earth, man is but making many portions
of it sink-holes of iniquity; where poverty, misery, degradation,
drunkenness, crime and sin lie festering in their filthiness under
the sunlight of heaven, until the very earth is defiled under the
inhabitants thereof.
Now, who is responsible for all these evils, this seething mass of
iniquity, which blights like a hell-sent plague this fair creation of
ours--the earth? I answer that every man and every woman and every
child, who has arrived at the years of accountability--who understands
the difference between good and evil--is responsible for it, so far,
and to that extent that his or her individual acts contribute to the
grand aggregate of crime in this sin-stained world.
In the commission of these individual sins, too, man's agency becomes
a factor. He sins knowingly willfully, and sometimes wantonly. He
transgresses the laws of God and of nature in spite of the protests of
his conscience, the convictions of his reason and the promptings of
his judgment. He becomes desperately wicked and so depraved that he
actually seeks evil and loves it. He hugs it to his bosom and cries,
"Evil, be thou my good; sin, be thou my refuge!"
For the transgression of that law which brought death into the world.
Justice had no claims upon the posterity of Adam, because their agency
was not concerned in it, hence a free redemption was provided from
the calamity that overtakes them. But in the case of these individual
sins, where the agency of every person is exercised, justice demands
that the penalties affixed to the violated laws be satisfied, and
the transgressors punished. But here again the principle of mercy is
active. As I have before stated, the victory over death is not the only
benefit arising from the Atonement of the Messiah; but by the sacrifice
which he made he purchased mankind as an inheritance for himself, and
they became of right under his dominion, for he ransomed them from
an endless sleep in the grave. Nor is that all, but as the scripture
saith: "He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows * * * He was
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the
chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are
healed * * * The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."[A] So
that his Atonement not only broke the bonds of death, but also atoned
for the individual sins of men on condition of their obedience--their
loyalty to Christ, who by virtue of his Atonement redeemed them from
endless death, and therefore of right became their lawgiver, and had
power given him to dictate the terms upon which the full benefits of
his Atonement should be applied to individuals, in order to release
them from the penalties which follow as a consequence of their personal
violations of the principles of righteousness.
[Footnote A: Isaiah liii: 5,6.]
First, however, let us settle it in our minds from authority that the
Atonement of Christ has this two-fold force that I have ascribed to it,
viz.: that it redeems all mankind from death; and also redeems them
from the consequences of personal sins, through obedience to Christ.
The first part of the proposition has already been discussed and proven
in those chapters devoted to the consideration of General Salvation,
and those arguments need not be repeated here.
That the second part is true is evident from such scripture as: "He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth
not shall be damned;"[B] and, "Being made perfect, he became the author
of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him."[C] But while you
are under the necessity of sustaining the proposition, so far as the
Jewish Scriptures are concerned, by inference, by conclusions drawn
from the consideration of numerous passages, in the Book of Mormon we
have passages which at once sustain the doctrine: "And also his blood
atoneth for the sins of those who have fallen by the transgression of
Adam, who have died not knowing the will of God concerning them, or
who have ignorantly sinned. But woe, woe unto him who knoweth that he
rebelleth against God; _for salvation cometh to none such, except it be
through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ_."[D]
[Footnote B: Mark xvi. 16.]
[Footnote C: Heb. v: 16.]
[Footnote D: Mosiah iii: 11, 12.]
Alma, in answering a question asked him by the lawyer Zeezrom, said of
Jesus:--"And he shall come into the world to redeem his people; and
he shall take upon him the transgressions of those who believe on his
name; and these are they that shall have eternal life, and salvation
cometh to none else; therefore the wicked remain as though there had
been no redemption made, except it be the loosing of the bonds of
death; for behold the day cometh that all shall rise from the dead and
stand before God and be judged according to their works."[E]
[Footnote E: Alma xi: 40,41.]
Still more plain in relation to the effect that Messiah's Atonement
has upon the personal sins of men, is the word of the Lord through the
Prophet Joseph Smith to Martin Harris, warning him to repent lest his
sufferings be sore--how sore, how exquisite, how hard to bear he knew
not: "For behold, I God, have suffered these things for all that they
might not suffer if they would repent, but if they would not repent,
they must suffer even as I, which suffering caused myself, even God,
the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every
pore, and to suffer both body and spirit; and would that I might not
drink the bitter cup and shrink--nevertheless, glory be to the Father,
I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men."[F]
[Footnote F: Doc. and Cov. Sec. xix, 16-18. See also Mosiah iii, 20,
21.]
These passages to my mind prove the dual character of Messiah's
Atonement--the redemption from the consequences of Adam's
transgression, from death; and redemption from personal sins on
condition of implicit obedience to the laws of Christ--to the gospel,
which we have already seen is the power of God unto salvation to
everyone who believes and obeys it.
It will doubtless be observed by the attentive reader that upon this
showing those who die before they are capable of knowing good or evil,
before they arrive at the years of accountability and who, therefore,
are pure and innocent, are saved by the merits of Jesus Christ alone.
Being redeemed from the death brought upon them by the fall of Adam,
by the Atonement made by Christ, and having committed no personal sins
--dying in the days of their innocence--they have nothing to repent of.
Having broken no law. Justice has no claim upon them; they fall into
the arms of Mercy alone, and there they are secure. Well might Jesus
exclaim--"Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the
kingdom of heaven!" But those who interpret that scripture to mean that
little children have to be baptized or perform or have performed for
them any other ordinance, in order that they might come unto Christ,
or to save them in the kingdom of God, are woefully ignorant of the
gospel, and fail to grasp the grandeur, the consistency the perfection
there is in it.
It was doubtless these considerations which caused Mormon to say,
in writing to his son Moroni: "Listen to the words of Christ your
Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold I came into the world not
to call the righteous but sinners to repentance: the whole need no
physician, but they that are sick; wherefore little children are whole
for they are not capable of committing sin, wherefore the curse of
Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; * * *
and after this manner did the Holy Ghost manifest the word of God unto
me, wherefore my beloved son, I know that it is solemn mockery before
God that ye should baptize little children. Behold I say unto you that
this thing shall ye teach, repentance and baptism unto those who are
accountable and capable of committing sin; yea, teach parents that
they must repent and be baptized and humble themselves as their little
children, and they shall all be saved with their little children. And
their little children need no repentance, neither baptism* * * Little
children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world."[G]
[Footnote G: Moroni viii, 8-12.]
No less implicit is the word of the Lord through the Prophet Joseph
Smith: "But behold I say unto you, that little children are redeemed
from the foundation of the world through mine Only Begotten. Wherefore
they cannot sin, for power is not given unto Satan to tempt little
children, until they begin to become accountable before me."[H]
[Footnote H: Doc. and Cov. Sec. xxix, 46, 47.]
Moreover, it appears that Mercy has special claims upon those men and
women, and also upon nations and races who know not the laws of God,
or have never heard the gospel. The first Nephi in speaking of the
Atonement of Christ and its effects where proclaimed and rejected,
says: "Wherefore he has given a law; and where there is no law given
there is no punishment; and where there is no punishment, there is no
condemnation; and where there is no condemnation, the mercies of the
Holy One of Israel have claim upon them because of the Atonement; for
they are delivered by the power of him (Christ); for the Atonement
satisfieth the demands of his justice upon all those who have not the
law given to them, that they are delivered from that awful monster,
death and hell and the devil, and the lake of fire and brimstone (see
Alma xii, 17),[I] which is endless torment; and they are restored to
that God who gave them breath, which is the Holy One of Israel."[J]
[Footnote I: The torments of the ungodly sinners are likened unto a
lake of fire and brimstone by this writer, Nephi--not that sinners
are plunged into a lake of fire and brimstone as so-called orthodox
Christians teach. Indeed, in the above passages there is a definition
of what the lake of fire is--it is "endless torment," which ever exists
for the punishment of impenitent sinners--each one partaking of it to
such a degree and for such time as is necessary to satisfy the demands
of justice. In the very chapter above quoted Nephi says of the wicked:
"And their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames
ascendeth up for ever and ever, and have no end."]
[Footnote J: II. Nephi ix, 25, 26.]
And so Moroni: "For the power of redemption Cometh on all they that
have no law; wherefore he that is not condemned, or he that is under no
condemnation cannot repent; and unto such baptism availeth nothing."[K]
[Footnote K: Moroni viii, 22.]
To this also agrees the teachings of Paul: "For as many as have sinned
without law shall also perish without law;[L] and as many as have
sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law."[M]
[Footnote L: I venture the suggestion, basing it on the sense of the
whole passage, that it should read: "Shall also be judged without the
law."]
[Footnote M: Rom. ii, 12.]
So also the word of the Lord to Joseph Smith: "And again I say unto
you, that whosoever having knowledge, have I not commanded to repent?
And he that hath no understanding it remaineth in me to do as it is
written."[N]
[Footnote N: Doc. and Cov. Sec. xxix, 49, 50.]
Hence it is that the heathen nations who have had no law given to them,
and have died without law, will have part in the first resurrection.[O]
[Footnote O: Doc. and Cov. Sec. xlv, 54. See also Mosiah xv, 24, 25.]
Still, those who have died without law are placed at this disadvantage;
that if they are not under the condemnation of the law, through not
having had it delivered to them, neither are they sanctified by the
law, and consequently their development in spiritual knowledge and
experience is not such as may warrant us in expecting that they
are prepared to inherit the same degree of glory with those who
have received the law of the gospel, faithfully observed all its
requirements and through their obedience have become sanctified by it,
and inherit the celestial glory, the highest of all. Therefore, it is
written of those who die without the law: "These are they who are of
the terrestrial [world], whose glory differs from that of the church of
the First Born, who have received the fullness of the Father, even as
the moon differs from the sun in the firmament. Behold _these are they
who died without law_."[P]
[Footnote P: Doc. and Cov. Sec. lxxvi, 71, 72.]
I know of nothing that is written, however, which prevents us from
believing that they may, eventually, enter the celestial kingdom. Of
one thing at least we may rest assured, and that is, that they will
receive all the glory, all the exaltation, that their capacity can
comprehend and enjoy, and they will be satisfied with the mercy and
justice of God.[Q]
[Footnote Q: See chapter on Salvation for the Dead.]
But now to return to those to whom the gospel is preached, and who can
only hope for salvation from the penalties affixed to sin, by obeying
the precepts and ordinances thereof. How far is their obedience taxed?
What principles are they to accept, what precepts practice, what
ordinances observe?
To the first question I make answer: That since Christ ransomed
mankind by his own death and suffering, from an endless sleep in the
grave, in order to attain the additional grace of an immunity from the
consequences of our personal violations of the laws of righteousness--a
forgiveness of sins--man's obedience to him must be implicit and
absolute. It is the duty of man to obey the whole Gospel, all precepts,
all ordinances, as far as they are made known unto him--in short, it is
binding on him to live by every word which proceedeth from the mouth
of God. In proof of this, I have only to add that when Jesus commanded
his apostles to go into the world and preach the Gospel he said: "Go
ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe
_all_ things whatsoever I have commanded you."[R]
[Footnote R: Matt. xxviii, 19, 20.]
There is no one single thing, however great, that man can do and then
be under no further obligations to continue to observe the laws of
righteousness. The reply of Jesus to the young man who came running
to him saying, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may
have eternal life?" was--"If you will enter into life, keep the
commandments." The young man asked, "which;" that is, which of the
commandments must he keep. And here I will say that by reading a little
between the lines it is not difficult to see that the young man had an
idea that there was some great thing he could do, and by that one act
secure eternal life. But the answer of Jesus dispelled that illusion,
for he said:--"Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery,
thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness; honor thy
father and thy mother; and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The
young man sayeth, all these things have I kept from my youth up; what
lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell
all thou hast and give it to the poor, * * * and come and follow me."[S]
[Footnote S: Matt. xix: 16-22.]
It will be observed from the foregoing that it was not enough that the
young man keep the commandments in the law of Moses, not enough that he
sell all that he had and give it to the poor, but he must then come and
follow his Master. How much that means! But I shall not particularize,
I shall sum up the matter by saying' that this case, together with the
observations in the preceding chapters, plainly proves that if man
would be perfect, if he would obtain the full benefits of Messiah's
atonement, complete absolution from his personal violation of holy,
righteous laws, as well as deliverance from the grave, his obedience to
the laws of Christ--the Gospel, must be implicit, absolute.