Show CHRISTIAN IDOLATRY at the conclusion of an article on ten tea great religions li and idolatrous worship I 1 promised to say something more on the subject connecting it A more closely with dissenters from the roman catholic church and other protestants of today who in turn charge the church with being idolatrous in her worship I 1 now undertake to redeem that promise idol worship I 1 understand to be the worshiping of any being or thing either real or imaginary as god or instead of him which is not the living and true god or the god who made man in his own image then in order to find out who worships such a god and who does not our best beat way will be first to get a fair and plain description of the true and living god from those who having had a favorable opportunity of inquiring inq uffing ought to know we will first hear what he says of himself as recorded by the historian moses and god said let us make man in our image ima after our own likeness genesis gene SIB 1 26 now we will see if they did as they contemplated 1 in n the verse we read so god created man in his own image in the image of god created he him male and female created he them from the above we learn that man was created and consequently is in the image of god but we will call another witness who ought to know gom something ething about the matter paul in his letter to the Hebrew 1 v 3 speaking of jesus of nazareth says who being the brightness of his gods glory and the express image of his person now if jesus was in the express image of gods person god must necessarily be in the express image of jesus and from what is said of him by the apostles and others who saw him he was in image ani person the same after his resurrection as before not differing in appearance of body or image from men generally of that age the foregoing to is sufficient for my present purpose so when we think of him or his father who is our heavenly father also we should think of them as living and real gods as possessing emotions like our own human emotions of love pity sorrow anger only purified from the grossness and narrowness it is only false philosophy and not the scriptures that consists in making god as different and distinct from man as possible all professing christians christia ns whether catholic or protestant acknowledge the authority from which I 1 have quoted but we shall soon see whether they keep to the law and the testimony in this I 1 dont donit wish to be uncharitable hence I 1 quote from the latest published work at my command namely the doctrines ani discipline of the methodist episcopal church south published in nashville tenn the southern methodist publishing house 1884 11 articles of religion chapter 1 sec 11 1 of faith in the holy trinity first there is but one living and true god everlasting without body or parts and inanity in unity of this godhead there are three persons of one substance power and eternity the father the son and the holy ghost and 2nd the son who is the word of the father the very and eternal god of one substance with the father ath the holy ghost proceeding from the father and the son is one substance majesty and glory with the father ma ind the son very and eternal god it will readily be seen that the above described god is very different from om him described in the scriptures by moses as the god of israel in that he has no body nor parts whereas the scriptural one has a body and all the parts of man whom he made and fashioned after himself this is quite an important difference though the methodists is perhaps as good a description as could be given in the absence of revelation or inspiration after so many hundreds of years of darkness error and corruption in the he universal or roman catholic church as is claimed by all dissenting or protestant churches nevertheless the description is not correct speaking of churches I 1 will quote a little further from the same work i 1 e articles of religion 1 I of the rights and ceremonies of the church 22 it is not necessary that hat rites and ceremonies should in all places be the same or exactly alike for they have been always diff different brent and may be changed according to the mad diversity iver sity of countries iries times and mens manners it strikes me that would have been a novel idea to jesus and the apos ties iles judging from their teachings they hey were very particular that rites and ceremonies of the eternal law of f the gospel should remain as es and not changed to suit the times all protestants worship the god above described by the methodists so 80 far as I 1 know at least no one of them has formulated a different description and published it to the world it is at least presumable that the methodists inasmuch as they have not described the scriptural one may have borrowed their description from the buddhists ancient mexicans or chinese which in part is identical I 1 quote from ten gr great grat at religions second part page speaking of buddha their god himself not made he has made all things he is the essence of essences the form of all things yet formless I 1 the ancient mexicans recognized a supreme being and addressed him as the god by whom we live invisible without body the above nations or peoples are called idolatrous also the chinese in one of their ancient descriptions among other things say speaking of their gods these three are inseparable and inexpressible we combine them into oneness which has no body a form without a form an image image w without ith an image from all these descriptions script ions of god without a body and parts it will be seen they make him only an imaginary something or as near nothing as possible hence little or no resemblance to the living aud and true god consequently au all who worship them must be idolaters idol aters or at least ignorant of the true god probably much of the atheism of our day arises from the ridiculous idolatrous description of the delty deity some men would rather own no god than such a heathen one as above described nowhere in the scriptures let ie god so described nor is the holy ghost described as being the same substance as the father and son but quite to the contrary otherwise he could not dwell in us having shown who does not worthe true and living god the god of moses and the apostles I 1 will proceed to show who does and while both catholics and protestants profess to believe in the scriptural authority from which I 1 have so far quoted they may not in some that will follow I 1 quote from doctrine and covenants 11 page on the ath day of april 1830 joseph smith and oliver cowdery organized the church of jesus christ of latter day saints from jesus christ himself as they claim having previously been enlightened by dreams visions ministration of angels revelation etc now according to all claims of all protestants no revelation has been oliven given or received since the days of john the revelator Bev elator hence it follows that if their statement in relation to the roman catholic church be true and I 1 have no reason to doubt it there was no true and pure church of christ on the earth up to that time for the best of all reasons without new revelation authorizing it there could not be as god is a god of order and not of confusion and they all claim that the homan roman catholic church from whence they came was corrupt and idol crous af and not the church of christ and yet claim no authority from flora him to establish a new As a corrupt fountain cannot send forth a pure stream even if that church had been pure whoever dissented from it was of course cut off with any authority they might have had hence the dilemma we will now examine and see what kind of god the lat ter day church members believe in in and worship they say in their articles of faith we believe in god the eternal father and his son jesus christ and in the holy ghost ath we believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church namely apostles prophets pastors teachers evangelists etc also the signs which followed the primitive saints as recorded in the new testament and in the saints doctrine and covenants page from the to the verse of section 84 they also believe that the father that is god has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as mans the son also but the holy ghost has not a body of flesh and bones but is a personage of spirit were it not so the holy ghost could not dwell in us doctrine and covenants page section verse 22 when the savior shall appear we shall see him as he is we shall see that he is a man like ourselves doe doc and cov section v 1 i 1 e verse 3 john xiv 23 S speaking of god the appearing of the the father and the son so n in that verse is a personal appearance and the idea that the father and the son dwell in a mans heart is an old sectarian notion and is false verse ad I 1 might make many more quotations of similar import from the same and other church works but sufficient has been proved to show conclusively that the latter day saints believe in and worship the god of moses the patriarchs and apostles as described in the scriptures of the old and new testament and also believe in the same organization and church government with its gifts and blessings as was organized on the earth in the meridian of time by the son of god and his apostles consequently we must come to the conclusion that they are not in any sense of the word idolatrous with all due deference respect and charity for all others A HAZELTON centreville CENT CEN BEVILLE TREVILLE utah june alth 1889 |