THE LONG NIGHT OF APOSTASY.
For over seventeen hundred years on the eastern hemisphere, and for more
than fourteen centuries on the western, there appears to have been
silence between the heavens and the earth.[1507] Of direct revelation
from God to man during this long interval, we have no authentic record.
As already shown, the period of apostolic ministry on the eastern
continent probably terminated before the dawn of the second century of
the Christian era. The passing of the apostles was followed by the rapid
development of a universal apostasy as had been foreseen and
predicted.[1508]
In the accomplishment of this great falling away, external and internal
causes cooperated. Among the disintegrating forces acting from without,
the most effective was the persistent persecution to which the saints
were subjected, incident to both Judaistic and pagan opposition. Vast
numbers who had professed membership and many who had been officers in
the ministry deserted the Church; while a few were stimulated to greater
zeal under the scourge of persecution. The general effect of opposition
from the outside--of external causes of decline in faith and works
considered as a whole--was the defection of individuals, resulting in a
widespread _apostasy from the Church_. But immeasurably more serious was
the result of internal dissension, schism and disruption, whereby an
absolute _apostasy of the Church_ from the way and word of God was
brought about.
Judaism was the earliest oppressor of Christianity, and became the
instigator and abettor of the succeeding atrocities incident to pagan
persecution. Open and vigorous hostility of the Roman powers against the
Christian Church became general during the reign of Nero, (beginning
about 64 A.D.), and continued with occasional respites of a few months
or even years at a time to the close of Diocletian's reign (about 305
A.D.). The inhuman cruelty and savage barbarity to which were subjected
those who dared profess the name of Christ during these centuries of
heathen domination are matters of accepted history.[1509] When
Constantine the Great came to the throne in the first quarter of the
fourth century, a radical change was inaugurated in the attitude of the
state toward the church. The emperor straightway made the so-called
Christianity of the time the religion of his realm; and zealous devotion
to the church became the surest recommendation to imperial favor. But
the church was already in great measure an apostate institution and even
in crude outline of organization and service bore but remote resemblance
to the Church of Jesus Christ, founded by the Savior and builded through
the instrumentality of the apostles. Whatever vestiges of genuine
Christianity may have possibly survived in the church before, were
buried beyond the sight of man by the abuses that followed the elevation
of the churchly organization to secular favor through the decree of
Constantine. The emperor, even though unbaptized, made himself the head
of the church, and priestly office was more sought after than military
rank or state preferment. The spirit of apostasy, by which the church
had become permeated before Constantine threw about it the mantle of
imperial protection and emblazoned it with the insignia of state, now
was roused to increased activity as the leaven of Satan's own culture
flourished under the conditions most favorable for such fungoid growth.
The bishop of Rome had already asserted supremacy over his fellows in
the episcopate; but when the emperor made Byzantium his capital, and
renamed it in his own honor, Constantinople, the bishop of that city
claimed equality with the Roman pontiff. The claim was contested; the
ensuing dissension divided the church; and the disruption has persisted
until the present day, as is evidenced by the existing distinction
between the Roman Catholic and the Greek Catholic churches.
The Roman pontiff exercized secular as well as spiritual authority; and
in the eleventh century arrogated to himself the title of _Pope_,
signifying _Father_, in the sense of paternal ruler in all things.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the temporal authority of
the pope was superior to that of kings and emperors; and the Roman
church became the despotic potentate of nations, and an autocrat above
all secular states. Yet this church, reeking with the stench of worldly
ambition and lust of dominance, audaciously claimed to be the Church
established by Him who affirmed: "My kingdom is not of this world." The
arrogant assumptions of the Church of Rome were not less extravagant in
spiritual than in secular administration. In her loudly asserted control
over the spiritual destinies of the souls of men, she blasphemously
pretended to forgive or retain individual sins, and to inflict or remit
penalties both on earth and beyond the grave. She sold permission to
commit sin and bartered for gold charters of indulgent forgiveness for
sins already done. Her pope, proclaiming himself the vicar of God, sat
in state to judge as God Himself; and by such blasphemy fulfilled the
prophecy of Paul following his warning in relation to the awful
conditions antecedent to the second coming of the Christ: "Let no man
deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come
a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of
perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called
God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of
God, shewing himself that he is God."[1510]
In her unrestrained abandon to the license of arrogated authority, the
Church of Rome hesitated not to transgress the law of God, change the
ordinances essential to salvation, and ruthlessly break the everlasting
covenant, thereby defiling the earth even as Isaiah had foretold.[1511]
She altered the ordinance of baptism, destroying its symbolism and
associating with it imitations of pagan rites; she corrupted the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and befouled the doctrine thereof by the
vagary of _transubstantiation_;[1512] she assumed to apply the merits of
the righteous to the forgiveness of the sinner in the unscriptural and
wholly repellent dogma of _supererogation_; she promoted idolatry in
most seductive and pernicious forms; she penalized the study of the holy
scriptures by the people at large; she enjoined an unnatural state of
celibacy upon her clergy; she revelled in unholy union with the theories
and sophistries of men, and so adulterated the simple doctrines of the
gospel of Christ as to produce a creed rank with superstition and
heresy; she promulgated such perverted doctrines regarding the human
body as to make the divinely formed tabernacle of flesh appear as a
thing fit only to be tortured and contemned; she proclaimed it an act of
virtue insuring rich reward to lie and deceive if thereby her own
interests might be subserved; and she so thoroughly departed from the
original plan of Church organization as to make of herself a spectacle
of ornate display, fabricated by the caprice of man.[1513]
The most important of the internal causes by which the apostasy of the
Primitive Church was brought about may be thus summarized: (1) The
corrupting of the simple doctrines of the gospel of Christ by admixture
with so-called philosophic systems. (2) Unauthorized additions to the
prescribed rites of the Church and the introduction of vital alterations
in essential ordinances. (3) Unauthorized changes in Church organization
and government.[1514]
Under the tyrannous repression incident to usurped and unrighteous
domination by the Roman church, civilization was retarded and for
centuries was practically halted in its course. The period of
retrogression is known in history as the Dark Ages. The fifteenth
century witnessed the movement known as the Renaissance or Revival of
Learning; there was a general and significantly rapid awakening among
men, and a determined effort to shake off the stupor of indolence and
ignorance was manifest throughout the civilized world. By historians and
philosophers the revival has been regarded as an unconscious and
spontaneous prompting of the "spirit of the times"; it was a development
predetermined in the Mind of God to illumine the benighted minds of men
in preparation for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which
was appointed to be accomplished some centuries later.[1515]
With the renewal of intellectual activity and effort in material
betterment, there came, as a natural and inevitable accompaniment,
protest and revolt against the ecclesiastical tyranny of the age. The
Albigenses in France had risen in insurrection against churchly
despotism during the thirteenth century; and in the fourteenth, John
Wickliffe of Oxford University had boldly denounced the corruption of
the Roman church and clergy, and particularly the restrictions imposed
by the papal hierarchy on the popular study of the scriptures. Wickliffe
gave to the world a version of the Holy Bible in English. These
manifestations of independent belief and action the papal church sought
to repress and punish by force. The Albigenses had been subjected to
inhuman cruelties and unrestrained slaughter. Wickliffe was the subject
of severe and persistent persecution; and though he died in his bed the
vindictiveness of the Roman church was unsated until she had caused his
body to be exhumed and burned and the ashes scattered abroad. John Huss
and Jerome of Prague were prominent on the continent of Europe in
agitation against papal despotism, and both fell martyrs to the cause.
Though the church had become apostate to the core, there were not
lacking men brave of heart and righteous of soul, ready to give their
lives to the furtherance of spiritual emancipation.
A notable revolt against the papacy occurred in the sixteenth century,
and is known as the Reformation. This movement was begun in 1517 by
Martin Luther, a German monk; and it spread so rapidly as soon to
involve the whole domain of popedom. Formal _protests_ against the
despotism of the papal church were formulated by the representatives of
certain German principalities and other delegates at a diet or general
council held at Spires A.D. 1529; and the reformers were thenceforth
known as _Protestants_. An independent church was proposed by John,
Elector of Saxony, a constitution for which was prepared at his instance
by Luther and his colleague, Melanchthon. The Protestants were
discordant. Being devoid of divine authority to guide them in matters of
church organization and doctrine, they followed the diverse ways of men,
and were rent within while assailed from without. The Roman church,
confronted by determined opponents, hesitated at no extreme of cruelty.
The court of the Inquisition, which had been established in the latter
part of the fifteenth century under the infamously sacrilegious name of
the "Holy Office," became intoxicated with the lust of barbarous cruelty
in the century of the Reformation, and inflicted indescribable tortures
on persons secretly accused of heresy.
In the early stages of the Reformation instigated by Luther, the king of
England, Henry VIII, declared himself a supporter of the pope, and was
rewarded by a papal bestowal of the distinguishing title "Defender of
the Faith." Within a few years, this same British sovereign was
excommunicated from the Roman church, because of impatient disregard of
the pope's authority in the matter of Henry's desire to divorce Queen
Catherine so that he could marry one of her maids. The British
parliament, in 1534, passed the Act of Supremacy, by which the nation
was declared free from all allegiance to papal authority. By Act of
Parliament the king was made the head of the church within his own
dominions. Thus was born the Church of England, a direct result of the
licentious amours of a debauched and infamous king. With blasphemous
indifference to the absence of divine commission, with no semblance of
priestly succession, an adulterous sovereign created a church, provided
therein a "priesthood" of his own, and proclaimed himself supreme
administrator in all matters spiritual.
With the conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism in Great Britain
the student of history is familiar. Suffice it here to say that the
mutual hatred of the two contending sects, the zeal of their respective
adherents, their professed love of God and devotion to Christ's service,
were chiefly signalized by the sword, the ax, and the stake. Revelling
in the realization of at least a partial emancipation from the tyranny
of priestcraft, men and nations debauched their newly acquired liberty
of thought, speech, and action, in a riot of abhorrent excess. The
mis-called Age of Reason, and the atheistical abominations culminating
in the French Revolution stand as ineffaceable testimony of what man may
become when glorying in his denial of God.
Is it to be wondered at, that from the sixteenth century onward,
churches of man's contriving have multiplied with phenomenal rapidity?
Churches and churchly organizations professing Christianity as their
creed have come to be numbered by hundreds. On every side is heard in
this day, "Lo, here is Christ" or "Lo, there." There are sects named
from the circumstances of their origin--as the Church of England; others
after their famous founders or promoters--as Lutheran, Calvinist,
Wesleyan; some are known by peculiarities of doctrine or plan of
administration--as Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregationalist;
but down to the third decade of the nineteenth century there was no
church on earth affirming name or title as the Church of Jesus Christ.
The only organization called a church existing at that time and
venturing to assert claim to authority by succession was the Catholic
church, which for centuries had been apostate and wholly bereft of
divine authority or recognition. If the "mother church" be without a
valid priesthood, and devoid of spiritual power, how can her offspring
derive from her the right to officiate in the things of God? Who would
dare to affirm that man can originate a priesthood which God is bound to
honor and acknowledge? Granted that men may and do create among
themselves societies, associations, sects, and even "churches" if they
choose so to designate their organizations; granted that they may
prescribe rules, formulate laws, and devize plans of operation,
discipline, and government, and that all such laws, rules, and schemes
of administration are binding upon those who assume membership--granted
all these rights and powers--whence can such human institutions derive
the authority of the Holy Priesthood, without which there can be no
Church of Christ?[1516]
The apostate condition of Christendom has been frankly admitted by many
eminent and conscientious representatives of the several churches, and
by churches as institutions. Even the Church of England acknowledges the
awful fact in her official declaration of degeneracy, as set forth in
the "_Homily Against Peril of Idolatry_," in these words:
"So that laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages,
sects, and degrees of men, women, and children of whole
Christendom--an horrible and most dreadful thing to think--have
been at once drowned in abominable idolatry; of all other vices
most detested of God, and most damnable to man; and that by the
space of eight hundred years and more."[1517]
Let it not be concluded that through the night of the universal
apostasy, long and dark as it was, God had forgotten the world. Mankind
had not been left wholly to itself. The Spirit of God was operative so
far as the unbelief of men permitted. John the apostle, and the Three
Nephite disciples,[1518] were ministering among men, though unknown. But
through the centuries of spiritual darkness men lived and died without
the administration of a contemporary apostle, prophet, elder, bishop,
priest, teacher, or deacon. Whatever of the form of Godliness existed in
the churches of human establishment was destitute of divine power. The
time foreseen by the inspired apostle had fully come--mankind in general
refused to endure sound doctrine, but, having itching ears, did they
heap to themselves teachers, after their own lusts, and verily had they
turned away their ears from the truth to follow after fables.[1519] The
first quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed the cumulative
fulfilment of the conditions predicted through the prophet Amos:
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in
the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing
the words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from
the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word
of the Lord, and shall not find it."[1520]
Throughout the period of apostasy the windows of heaven had been shut
toward the world, so as to preclude all direct revelation from God, and
particularly any personal ministration or theophany of the Christ.
Mankind had ceased to know God; and had invested the utterances of
prophets and apostles of old, who had known Him, with a pall of mystery
and fancy, so that the True and the Living God was no longer believed to
exist; but in His place the sectaries had tried to conceive of an
incomprehensible being, devoid of "body, parts, or passions," an
immaterial nothing.[1521]
But it had been determined in the councils of heaven, that after many
centuries of benighted ignorance the world should be illumined anew by
the light of truth. Through the operation of the genius of intelligence,
which is the Spirit of Truth, the soul of the race had been undergoing a
preparation, like unto the deep plowing of a field, for the planting of
the gospel afresh. The principle of the mariner's compass was revealed
by the Spirit; the material embodiment thereof was invented by man; and
by its aid the unknown oceans were explored. Toward the end of the
fifteenth century Columbus was led by the inspiration of God to the
discovery of the New World, whereon dwelt the degenerate posterity of
Lehi, a dark-skinned remnant of the house of Israel--the American
Indians. In due time the good ships _Mayflower_ and _Speedwell_ brought
to the western world the Pilgrim Fathers, as the vanguard of a host
escaping from exile and seeking a new home wherein they could worship
according to the dictates of their consciences. The coming of Columbus
and the later immigration of the Puritan Pilgrims had been predicted
nearly six hundred years before Christ; their respective missions had
been as truly appointed unto them as has been the sending of any prophet
with a message to deliver and a work to do.[1522] The war between the
American Colonies and the Mother Country, and the victorious issue
thereof in the emancipation of the American nation once and forever from
monarchial rule, had been foretold as further steps in preparation for
the restoration of the gospel. Time was allowed for the establishment of
a stable government, for the raising up of men chosen and inspired to
frame and promulgate the Constitution of the United States, which
promises to every man a full measure of political and religious freedom.
It was not meet that the precious seed of the restored gospel be thrown
upon unplowed soil, hardened by intolerance, and fit to produce only
thorns of bigotry and rank weeds of mental and spiritual serfdom. The
gospel of Jesus Christ is the embodiment of liberty; it is the truth
that shall make free every man and every nation who will accept and obey
its precepts.
At the appointed time, the Eternal Father and His Son Jesus the Christ
appeared to man upon the earth, and inaugurated the Dispensation of the
Fulness of Times.
NOTES TO CHAPTER 40.
1. Cessation of Revelation on the Western Hemisphere.--"The eastern
world had lost this knowledge of the Lord earlier than the western
hemisphere. Upon the land of North America, four hundred years after the
birth of our Savior and Master, there stood at least one man who knew
the Lord God Almighty as a distinct personality, a Being capable of
communicating Himself to man. That man was Moroni, the son of Mormon,
whose testimony abides now and must abide through all the ages to
come."--George Q. Cannon, _Life of Joseph Smith_, p. 21. See B. of M.,
Moroni 10:27-34.
2. Results of the Great Apostasy Divinely Overruled for Eventual
Good.--The thoughtful student cannot fail to see in the progress of the
great apostasy and its results the existence of an overruling power
operating toward eventual good, however mysterious its methods. The
heart-rending persecutions to which the saints were subjected in the
early centuries of our era, the anguish, the torture, the bloodshed
incurred in defense of the testimony of Christ, the rise of an apostate
church, blighting the intellect and leading captive the souls of
men--all these dread conditions were foreknown to the Lord. While we
cannot say or believe that such exhibitions of human depravity and
blasphemy of heart were in accordance with the divine will, certainly
God willed to permit full scope to the free agency of man, in the
exercize of which agency some won the martyr's crown, and others filled
the flagon of their iniquity to overflowing. Not less marked is the
divine permission in the revolts and rebellions, in the revolutions and
reformations, that developed in opposition to the darkening influence of
the apostate church. Wickliffe and Huss, Luther and Melanchthon, Zwingli
and Calvin, Henry VIII in his arrogant assumption of priestly authority,
John Knox in Scotland, Roger Williams in America--these and a host of
others builded better than they knew, in that their efforts laid in part
the foundation of the structure of religious freedom and liberty of
conscience--and this in preparation for the restoration of the gospel as
had been divinely predicted.--_The Great Apostasy_, 10:19, 20.
3. Declaration of a General Apostasy by the Church of England.--The
_Book of Homilies_, from which the quotation given in the text is taken,
was published about the middle of the sixteenth century. The official
proclamation of a universal apostasy was made prominently current, for
the Homilies were "appointed to be read in churches" in lieu of sermons
under certain conditions. In the statement cited, the Church of England
solemnly avers that a state of apostasy affecting all ages, sects, and
degrees throughout whole Christendom, had prevailed for eight hundred
years prior to the establishment of the church making the declaration.
That this affirmation remains effective today, as both confession and
profession of the Church of England, appears from the fact that the
homily "Against Peril of Idolatry" and certain other homilies are
specifically ratified and endorsed, and withal prescribed "to be read in
Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be
understanded of the people." See "Articles of Religion" xxxv, in current
issues of Church of England, _Book of Common Prayer_.
4. The "Creed of Athanasius."--At the Council of Nice, convoked by the
emperor Constantine, 325 A.D., a formal statement of belief concerning
the Godhead was adopted. Later a modification was issued, known as the
"Creed of Athanasius," and though the authorship is questioned, the
creed has a place in the ritual of some of the Protestant churches. No
more conclusive evidence that men had ceased to know God need be adduced
than the Athanasian Creed. As confessed by the Church of England in this
day, and as published in the official ritual (see _Prayer Book_) "The
Creed of Saint Athanasius" is this: "We worship one God in Trinity, and
Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing the
Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son:
and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty
co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son: and such is the Holy
Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate: and the Holy Ghost
uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible: and the
Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal: and
the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals: but one
eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three
uncreated: but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. So likewise the
Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty: and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And
yet they are not three Almighties: but one Almighty. So the Father is
God, the Son is God: and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not
three Gods: but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord,
and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords: but one Lord."
Then follows this strange confession of what is at once required by
"Christian verity," and forbidden by the "Catholick Religion": "For like
as we are compelled by the Christian verity: to acknowledge every Person
by himself to be God and Lord; so are we forbidden by the Catholick
Religion: to say, There be three Gods, or three Lords."
5. The Mission of Columbus and Its Results.--Unto Nephi, son of Lehi,
was shown the future of his people, including the degeneracy of a branch
thereof, afterward known as Lamanites and in modern times as American
Indians. The coming of a man from among the Gentiles, across the deep
waters, was revealed in such plainness as to positively identify that
man with Columbus; and the coming of other Gentiles to this land, out of
captivity, is equally explicit. The revelation is thus recorded by Nephi
to whom it was given: "And it came to pass that I looked and beheld many
waters; and they divided the Gentiles from the seed of my brethren. And
it came to pass that the angel said unto me, Behold the wrath of God is
upon the seed of thy brethren. And I looked and beheld a man among the
Gentiles who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many
waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought
upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed
of my brethren, who were in the promised land. And it came to pass that
I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and
they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters." (1 Nephi
13:10-13). The establishment of a great Gentile nation on the American
continent, the subjugation of the Lamanites or Indians, the war between
the newly established nation and Great Britain, or "their mother
Gentiles," and the victorious outcome of that struggle for independence,
are set forth with equal clearness in the same chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[1507] Note 1, end of chapter.
[1508] No extended account of the apostasy of the Primitive Church can
be attempted here; the reader is referred to special works treating this
important subject. See the author's "The Great Apostasy, considered in
the Light of Scriptural and Secular History," a work of 176 pages.
[1509] See "The Great Apostasy," chaps. 4 and 5.
[1510] 1 Thess. 2:3, 4.
[1511] Isa. 24:5.
[1512] The false doctrine of "transubstantiation" is to the effect that
the bread and wine administered as emblems of Christ's flesh and blood
in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper are transmuted by priestly
consecration into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. See "The
Great Apostasy," 8:16-19. As to "supererogation" see page 590 herein.
[1513] "The Great Apostasy," chaps. 6, 7, 8.
[1514] "The Great Apostasy," 6:14, 15; for comprehensive treatment of
the subject see chapters 6 to 9 inclusive.
[1515] Note 2, end of chapter.
[1516] This paragraph is in part a paraphrase of "The Great Apostasy,"
10:21, 22.
[1517] Note 3, end of chapter.
[1518] Pages 694 and 738.
[1519] See 2 Tim. 4:1-4; also "The Great Apostasy," 2:30.
[1520] Amos. 8:11, 12.
[1521] See Church of England "Book of Common Prayer," "Articles of
Religion" i. Note 4, end of chapter.
[1522] See B. of M., 1 Nephi 13:10-13. Note 5, end of chapter.