FAITH--TRADITION.
Having now concluded our inquiry as to the authenticity and credibility
of our principal volume of scripture--the Bible; having proven,
as I hope, to the satisfaction of my readers, that the Bible is
authentic, and worthy of their confidence in what it says of God, of
Christ and the Gospel, I have only to remark that the evidence it
contains--especially when considered in connection with that found
in the other scriptures, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants
and Pearl of Great Price--is sufficient to plant in the mind an
intelligent belief in God, in Christ and in the Gospel as the plan of
man's redemption. And now, after so long a digression, I return to the
subject of faith in God.
I have already remarked[A] that faith is the first principle of
religion, and that religious faith centers in God, to whom men look for
salvation. I have also remarked that it is absolutely necessary for
those who come to God to believe that he exists, for unless that fact
is firmly fixed in their minds, men will consider themselves under no
obligations to obey him.
[Footnote A: Chapter vii.]
The first evidence men have of the existence of God comes from
tradition, from the testimony of their fathers; and this has been the
case from that event known as the Fall, until the present. Nor is
this evidence unworthy our serious attention; it rests upon a surer
foundation than is usually accorded it. Suppose we go back to its
beginning, to its first introduction into the world, and observe how
well founded it is.
According to the account given by Moses in Genesis, previous to the
Fall, Adam associated with God; conversed with him respecting the
works of creation, and gave names to the cattle, and all living things
upon the earth. How long continued, or how intimate that association
was, we are not informed in Genesis; but, at all events, it was long
enough continued, and sufficiently intimate to fix definitely in the
mind of Adam the fact of God's existence. Then when Adam and his wife
transgressed God's law, their recollection of his existence did not
vanish, but they tried to hide from his presence; and were afterwards
visited of the Lord, who reproved them for their sin and pronounced the
penalty which would overtake them for their transgression.
All I wish to call attention to in this is the fact that they knew
positively of the Lord's existence before their transgression, and they
did not forget it after that event; but on the contrary had a lively
recollection of what they had seen and heard before they fell, and
related it to their children, who, in turn, transmitted it to their
children, and so from generation to generation the tradition of God's
existence has been handed down until the present time.
But other considerations are yet to be noticed in respect to this
tradition. It will be remembered that Adam and all the patriarchs
previous to the Flood lived to a very great age. Adam lived nine
hundred and thirty years, and during that time Seth, Enos, Cainan,
Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah and Lamech, the father of Noah,
were born. Indeed the last named was fifty-six years old[B] when Adam
died; so that for a number of years he must have had the pleasure of
Adam's acquaintance; while the patriarchs between Adam and Lamech
all associated with him for hundreds of years, and would learn well
the story that the grand patriarch of our race would have to tell
respecting Eden before the Fall.
[Footnote B: See Doc. and Cov. II Lecture on Faith, verse 30.]
Then again, we are told in Genesis[C] that when Lamech was one hundred
and eighty-two years old he begat Noah; and since Lamech was fifty-six
years old when Adam died, Adam had been dead but one hundred and
twenty-six years when Noah was born. After the birth of Noah, Lamech
lived five hundred and ninety-five years, so that Noah associated
with his father, who had seen Adam, for more than five hundred years;
and also with a number of the other patriarchs--with Enos, the
grandson of Adam, and son of Seth--with Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared
and Methuselah.[D] Then, the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth,
all of whom were born before the Flood, would likewise be acquainted
with a number of these worthies who had lived with Adam and heard his
testimony of God's existence.
[Footnote C: Gen. v: 28, 29.]
[Footnote D: Those desiring a more minute account of these points are
referred to the Doc. and Cov., II Lecture on Faith.]
Again, Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the Flood; that
would give him ample time and opportunity to teach his posterity for
several generations the tradition respecting God, which he had received
from a number of patriarchs, who lived previous to the Flood, and thus
the said tradition became firmly fixed in the minds of men.
Traces of that tradition, and of these patriarchs connected with
it, may be found in nearly all, and so far as I know, in all the
mythologies of the world, as well in ancient as in modern times; as
well in the mythology of the civilized Greeks and Romans, as in that of
India, China, Egypt, and that of the American Indians. The tradition
has evidently been corrupted, added to and twisted into fantastic
shapes by the idle fancies of corrupt minds, but despite all the
changes made in it, traces of this tradition are discoverable in the
mythology of all lands.
I believe, too, with Crabb, "That the fictions of mythology were not
invented [always] in ignorance of divine truth, but with a willful
intention to pervert it; not made only by men of profligate lives
and daring impiety, who preferred darkness to light, because their
deeds were evil, but by men of refinement and cultivation, from the
opposition of science, falsely so-called; not made, as some are pleased
to think, by priests only, for interested purposes, but by poets and
philosophers among the laity, who, careless of truth or falsehood,
were pleased with nothing but their own corrupt imaginations and vain
conceits."[E]
[Footnote E: Crabb's Mythology of all Nations, pp. 174-5.]
Thus the tradition of the patriarchs was, in time, degraded, by some
branches of their posterity, to mythology--a muddy, troubled pool,
which, like a mirror shattered into a thousand fragments, reflects
while it distorts into fantastic shapes the objects on its banks.
Still, under all the rubbish of human invention may be found the
leading idea--God's existence, and that fact alone, however misshapen
it may be, proves how firmly fixed in the human mind is the tradition
of the fathers; while the universality of that tradition goes very far
towards proving its truth. When once the idea of the existence of a God
is suggested to the mind of man by the testimony of the fathers, and
represented as he is by that tradition, as the Creator of the heavens
and the earth, and also as the great governing power throughout the
universe,--very much is discovered in the marvelous works of nature
to strengthen and confirm, almost to a certainty, the truth of that
tradition.
Man is conscious of his own existence, and that existence is a
stupendous miracle of itself; he is conscious, too, of other facts. He
looks out into space in the stillness of night, and sees the deep vault
of heaven inlaid with planetary systems, all moving in exact order and
harmony, in such regularity that he cannot doubt that intelligence
brought them into being, and now sustains and directs the forces that
preserve them. Thus the heavens declare the existence of God as well
as his glory. This thought is in harmony with the tradition of his
fathers, and he recognizes the identity between the intelligence that
he knows must control the universe, and the God of which his fathers
testify.
Nor is this all: but in the mysterious changes which take place on our
own planet, in the gentle Spring, luxuriant Summer, fruitful Autumn and
blighting Winter, with its storms and frosts--the "mysterious round"
which brings us our seed time and harvest, and clothes the earth with
vegetation and flowers, perpetuating that wonderful power we call life,
the strangest fact in all the works of nature--in these mighty changes,
so essential and beneficent, man recognizes the wisdom and power of God
of whom his fathers bear record.
As the heavens declare his existence and glory, so, likewise, do these
changes and a thousand other things, connected with our earth, until
lost in wonder and admiration, one exclaims with Paul, "The invisible
things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and
godhead."[F] Or else he calls to mind another scripture, still more
sublime--"The earth rolls upon her wings, and the sun giveth his light
by day, and the stars also giveth their light, as they roll upon their
wings in their glory, in the midst of the power of God. * * * Behold,
all these are kingdoms, and any man who hath seen any or the least of
these, hath seen God moving in his majesty and power."[G]
[Footnote F: Rom. i: 20.]
[Footnote G: Doc. and Cov. Sec. 88: 45-47.]
"But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, Man marks not
Thee; marks not the mighty hand, That, ever busy, wheels the silent
spheres!"
This much we may say, in conclusion, the tradition of the fathers,
confirmed by the power of God as manifested in the works of nature,
lays a broad foundation for an intelligent belief in God's existence.