Papist Not Justified Condeming Polygamy, Saith the Lord
Not Justified in Condemnation of Polygamy Saith the Lord"
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Original Air Date: December 16, 2010
Papists Not Justified in Condemnation of Polygamy, Saith the Lord
1 Ne 13:34
34 ...and after the Gentiles do stumble exceedingly, because of the most plain and precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back by that abominable church, which is the mother of harlots, saith the Lamb--I will be merciful unto the Gentiles in that day, insomuch that I will bring forth unto them, in mine own power, much of my gospel, which shall be plain and precious, saith the Lamb.
16 And as there began to be wars and rumors of wars among all the nations which belonged to the mother of abominations, the angel spake unto me, saying: Behold, the wrath of God is upon the mother of harlots; and behold, thou seest all these things--
17 And when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel.
5 And upon her forehead [was] a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
1. If plurality is offensive in the sight of God, why was Abraham, who practiced it, called the friend of God, and the father of the faithful? Why did the Lord promise that in him, as well as in his seed, all the families of the earth should be blessed? Why require all the families of the earth, under the Christian dispensation, to be adopted into the family of a Polygamist in order to be saved? Why choose a Polygamist to be the father of all saved families? Why require all Christian families in order to be saved, to walk in the steps and do the works of Abraham? Why did God proclaim Himself to be "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," and say that this shall "MY NAME AND MY MEMORIAL TO ALL GENERATIONS?" (See Exodus 3: 15.) If Polygamy is not to be sanctioned among the generations of Christendom, why did He represent Himself to be the God of Polygamists, and say that all generations should adopt that memorial of Him? Why choose these Polygamists to be examples for Christians, and say, that many should come from the east and the west, from the north and the
north and the south, and sit down with them in the kingdom of God? Will Abraham's wives and concubines, and Jacob's four wives be in the kingdom of God with their husbands? If so, will it not greatly corrupt the morals of Christians to sit down in the same kingdom with them? Will not Christians be greatly ashamed to be found sitting in the company of Polygamists? Will not Christians entirely ruin their characters by being adopted into the family of so noted a Polygamist as Abraham, and be obliged to acknowledge him as father, and be called his children? "The Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, "In thee shall all nations be blessed." (Gal. 3: 8.) What kind of Gospel was preached unto Abraham? Was it not the same Gospel that was preached after Christ, by which the heathen were to be justified, and by which all the families of the earth might be blessed by becoming the children of Abraham through adoption? Did it not require the same Gospel to save the Polygamist father in the kingdom of God, as that which saves his adopted children that sit down with him in the same kingdom? Does the Gospel, since Christ exalt Christians to a more glorious kingdom than the one where Abraham dwells? If not, is it any better than the Gospel preached to Abraham? Did not Abraham see the day of Christ and rejoice in it, and look forward to his atoning sacrifice, the same as Christians afterwards looked back to the same atonement? If the Gospel which was preached to Abraham required the same faith--the same repentance--the same justification--the same sanctification through the Holy Ghost--if it procured for him the same blessings--the same gifts of prophecy and revelations---the same gifts of seeing visions and of conversing with angels--the same miraculous powers and heavenly promises--if it made him worthy of the title of the friend of God, and exalted him to be the father of the faithful, even the father of all saved nations--if, moreover, it saved him in the kingdom of God--in the same kingdom where his Christian children are to sit down with him--then was it not the Gospel of Christianity--the very same Gospel that was preached after Christ? And if the same Gospel, then who dare deny, that Polygamy was not practised [sic] by the very best of men, under a Christian and Gospel dispensation? Who dare say that Abraham's righteousness was not as great as the righteousness of his children?
1:12:188-189
2. Did not the Lord greatly bless and prosper Jacob both before and after he became a Polygamist? Did he not continue to give him many revelations and visions, and send hosts of angels to converse with him? If Polygamy were a crime, would not God have informed him of the fact? If it were sinful, would he have saved him in His kingdom without repentance? As Jacob did not repent, but continued a polygamist until his death, and as he was saved, he must have been saved in his sins; for God does not forgive sins without repentance; or, otherwise, polygamy is no sin. Why did the Lord restrain Sarai, Abram's wife, from bearing? (Gen. 16: 2.) Was it not because she for a long time neglected to give Abram another wife that he might become the father of many nations? After she had given Hager to her husband, the Lord then condescended to give her a son. If polygamy were criminal and sinful, why did Rachel give Bilhah to her husband? would she have sacrificed her feelings in this way for the sake of committing sin? would she have sacrificed, not only the dearest earthly object she had, but also subjected herself to sin and condemnation, and run the risk of sacrificing her eternal salvation, merely for the object of having Bilhah raise up children for her? What benefit would Bilhah's children be to her, compared with the love which a wife has for her husband, and especially with the love of justification before God? Does not this example then of self-sacrifice, show most conclusively that Rachel acted from a higher motive than the ruin of her soul for the sake of her husband's raising up children by Bilhah? Does it not prove that a sense of duty alone operated upon her mind and urged her on to make so great a sacrifice? How did Leah prevail with the Lord to obtain more children? She had several years before raised unto her husband four sons, but for some reason the Lord had for some length of time restrained her from bearing. What particular duty did she perform in order to again be blessed with children? She gave her handmaiden Zilpah to her husband for a wife. Did this sacrifice produce the desired effect? Yes it so highly pleased the Lord that He hearkened unto Leah, and she conceived, and bare Jacob a fifth son. And Leah said, "God hath given me my hire, because I have given my maiden to my husband." (Genesis 30.) Can it be said, in this case, that the love of having additional children, born by another woman would have induced her to yield to so great a sacrifice? If children were the object, she already had them of her own; and certainly, Zilpah's children could not have been as dear to her as her own dear husband. What higher object then could have induced her to make the sacrifice? If plurality were sinful, would she have expected that her sins would prevail with the Lord, and that her crimes would cause him to hearken to her prayer and give her additional children? If giving her maiden to her husband was offensive to God, why did He hearken to her prayer and bless her for so doing? Do not all these facts prove that God was highly pleased with the plurality system as practiced by those holy men and women.
1:12:189
3. Where was there ever a more holy man than Moses with whom God spake face to face? Did not Moses know about Christ, and Christianity, and the gospel? Jesus says, that Moses wrote of him: Paul says that Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: and again he says, that the gospel was preached unto them (the children of Israel in the wilderness) as well as unto us, and testifies, that they were baptized in the cloud and in the sea. If Moses then believed the gospel, and was baptized, and embraced Christianity, and suffered the reproach of Christ, was he not a Christian just as much as those who embraced the gospel after Christ? Moses therefore, was a Christain [sic] polygamist and set the example before all Israel, and when his own brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam the prophetess, spake against one of his wives, the Lord was very angry with them and smote Mariam [sic] with the leprosy. (Numbers 12.) Did not the Lord by this act show most clearly that He approbated polygamy, and that he held sacred to Moses the wives he had taken? Did not God himself give laws through Moses to regulate the descent of property in the families of polygamists? Was not Moses, though a polygamist saved in the kingdom of God? Did not Moses and Elias appear in
in glory to Peter, James, and John in the holy mount at the time of Christ's transfiguration? If Moses could be saved by the gospel, and by embracing Christ, then is it not certain that polygamy was approbated just as much under the gospel as under the law?
1:12:189-190
4. If polygamy was sinful and criminal, Why did God command the living brother to marry all the widows of his deceased brothers who died without children? Would God command his people under a heavy penalty to commit sin and then punish them for doing it? It must have been a hard case, if the children of Israel were to be cursed if they did not keep the law, and then again to be cursed if they did keep it! yet this must have been the case, if they were to be cursed for being polygamists when the law of God compelled them in certain cases to be such.
1:12:190
5. In the days of Christ while the law of Moses was yet in full force, there must have been thousands of Israel who were compelled by their law to be polygamists or else suffer the penalty of the curse annexed to that law: In what way could those polygamists embrace Christianity and be received into the Church of Christ? Was it lawful for polygamists to be baptized into the Christian Church? If not, would the gospel permit them to divorce all their wives but one? Would the gospel permit them to put assunder [sic] those whom God, by his express command, had joined together? If the gospel would allow all but one to be divorced, then which wives were to be cast out with their children, and which one was to be retained? But if the gospel would not permit these Jewish Polygamists to divorce their wives, except in cases of adultery, what could they do? Could they be saved without coming into the Christian Church? And if not, must they be, damned without remedy? Did they by keeping the law, according to Gods command, place themselves in a hopeless condition, where Christianity could not reach them? If so, they must have been sent to hell if they had failed to keep the law, and Christianity sends them to hell, without offering any remedy, because they have kept the law and thus become polygamists. But this is too absurd for even savages to believe. It would be most shocking blasphemy to make God the Author of so wicked a doctrine. No, one can dispute, then, but that these Jewish polygamists with all their wives had the same privilege of entering the Christian Church as any others. And as this must have been the case, then who dare say that polygamy was not practiced and approbated by those in the Christian Church in the days of our Saviour and his apostles? Was there any possible chance of extricating the Jewish polygamist from his dilemma and saving him in the kingdom of God, short of Christianity? So certain as any of them were saved, so certain did Christianity tolerate polygamy; for we are certain that it did not tolerate divorces only for a certain transgression.
6. If polygamy is to be considered sinful under the gospel dispensation, why did David speak of the honorable wives of the son of God himself and so particularly describe one of His Queens. Would Christ sanction a sinful institution by his own practice? and then command His disciples to follow him?
7. If polygamists cannot be admited [sic] into the Christian Church, Why did Isaiah prophesy concerning the future glory of Zion under the Christian dispensation, and inform us that "In that day seven women should take hold of one man saying, We
saying, We will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach?" If such things are sinful, Why did Isaiah further predict, that "In that day the branch of the Lord should be beautiful and glorious and that every one who should be left in Zion should be called holy, and that all their dwellings and assemblies should be overshadowed with a cloud and smoke by day, and a pillar of fire by night? Why are these polygamists who are to have seven women hold of their skirts to be called holy--to be so beautiful and glorious--to have such magnificent displays of the glory of God in their midst? Why is all this yet to take place under the Christian dispensation, if polygamy is not to be tolerated in the church of Christ and is so offensive in the sight of God? Do not all these things demonstrate that polygamy is compatible with Christianity, and that it has existed and will exist in the Christian Church in the days of its greatest glory? Can any Bible reader or Bible believer dispute this?
1:12:190-191
8. Can any one tell why David before he committed adultery and was the means of shedding innocent blood was called a man after God's own heart? Did he not marry seven wives before God exalted him to the throne of Israel? After David had already taken seven wives, why did God give him all of Saul's wives in addition? Did the Lord think that David had not a sufficent [sic] number that He himself should give him more? Who dare say that polygamy is not a divine institution when God commanded it by the mouth of Moses, and then actually gave Saul's wives into David's bosom?
1:12:191
9. If polygamy is not a divine institution Why did that good man Jehoiada the high priest give two wives to the good king Joash? Was not this done by a righteous man and by the highest authority of the priesthood that God lied upon the earth?
10. If polygamy is not a divine institution why did God command the prophet Hosea to marry two wives?
11. If among the people of God, polygamy is not more pleasing than monogamy or the one wife system, why did God command Israel to kill all their mule captives and to save all the virgins alive for themselves? Why did he command them to do this as a general rule in all their future wars against foreign cities and nations? Was it not instituted in order to supply Israel with women enough to make a nation of polygamists? Was it not in this way, that He intended to greatly multiply Israel and make them as the sands upon the sea shore, according to the promises made to their polygamist ancestors?
12. If among the righteous polygamists are not more honorable in the sight of God than the monogamists, why is it that God generally chose the former to be deliverers, judges, rulers, kings, priests, prophets, and patriarchs, in preference to the latter? Why was Gideon who had many wives and no less than seventy-two sons, chosen to deliver Israel? Why did the King of kings and Lord of lords choose to be born into this world in a family whose ancestors were noted polygamists? Do not all these things prove, that among the righteous, God prefered [sic] the system of polygamy to that of monogamy?
13. If polygamy was not permitted in the Christian Church, why did Paul require Timothy to select from among the church members men who were the husbands of one wife for the offices of bishops and deacons? If there were no polygamists in church, would it have been possible for Timothy to
Timothy to have selected them? And if not possible, why did Paul give the advice? Does not this prove most conclusively that polygamy did exist in that church? Does Paul any where represent polygamy to be evil or immoral? did not he require such selections to be made in order that these officers might not be encumbered with the cares of a large family? It might be necessary sometimes under particular circumstances, to select young men that were single for ordination, to be sent on particular missions, where even one wife would be a great incumbrance and for the time being a hindrance to their usefulness. Because, under such circumstances, instructions were given to select single men; should it therefore be inferred that it was sinful for others to be husbands? So likewise, considering the arduous duties, required of bishops and deacons, Paul thought best to select for these offices husbands having one wife; should it therefore be inferred that it was sinful for other husbands to have more than one?
14. Did our Saviour or any of his Apostles ever forbid polygamy or condemn it as sinful? If not why should Christendom now condemn it? Do they think to be more righteous in this respect, than Jesus Christ the great Author of Christianity?
1:12:191-192
15. There are hundreds of thousands of polygamists among the various nations of the earth who have married their wives according to the laws of their respective governments. When Christendom send forth their missionaries to convert them, in what way can they be admitted into the church? Must they divorce all their wives but one? If so, which one shall they retain, and which ones shall they cast away upon the cruel mercies of the worlds? A certain wealthy, kind, and benevolent man, in Asia who knows nothing of Christianity, purchases for himself ten virgins and marries them all at the same time, according to the customs and laws of his country. Each of his wives raises up unto him four children. After which a missionary from Christendom happens along and preaches to him and his numerous family, Christianity: he, and his ten wives, and forty children, all believe and wish to be baptized into the Christian Church. He is told by the missionary that he must divorce all his wives but one, without which he cannot be received. But neither the missionary nor the man himself know of any rule to decide which one of the ten is to be retained? They were all married to him at the same time; all have been true to him; and each have borne to him an equal number of children. But at length, without any rule, the decision is made; nine-tenths of his dear family are put away; not however, without a heart-rending sacrifice of feelings on the part of himself and his beloved family. He and his one wife are now admitted into the church and considered good Christians. But two-thirds of his family who are thus torn from his embrace and cast out, begin to doubt very seriously whether Christianity is as good as the religion of their own nation. They begin to think that a religion that will thus break up families cannot be good; they renounce it at once, and turn to their idolatry. As for the other third of the sorrowful out cast wives, perhaps they may even yet have a feint lingering hope that Christianity is a true system of religion; but having no husband and protector, they finally meet with au opportunity of marrying idolatrous husbands: and after a while, having no Christian husbands to guide them, they
, they entirely lose what little faith they had, and embrace again the religion of their husbands and fathers, and the poor children follow the examples of their mothers. Thus the nine wives and thirty-six children who believed in Christianity and would have entered the church with their husband and father, had they not been put away, are forced into circumstances, calculated to destroy and entirely irradicate [sic] from their minds all faith in the Christian religion. Does Christianity require missionaries to pursue such a course among polygamist nations? Does it require them to tear asunder family ties; to break up and scatter in some instances nine-tenths of those who are nearer and more precious to each other than life? Does it require them to pursue a course calculated in its very nature, to make them loathe and detest Christianity, as more cruel in their estimation than the grave? By what law of Christianity do they teach such to divorce any one of their wives, except for the cause of adultery? O Christendom, where is thy consistency! it is gone! it is fled! and absurdity and every species of wickedness have taken the place thereof! Thou corruptest the nations with thy whoredoms, and yet thou wouldst fein persuade them that thou art righteous; but the day is at hand when thine iniquities shall be proclaimed upon the house tops, and thou shall be judged for all thy filthiness and abominations, and shall be cast down by devouring fire. Then shall come salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, and the reign of peace, and the day of the righteous, wherein Abraham and his wives together with all his seed that are righteous, shall inherit the earth, and reign for ever and ever.
EDITOR.
CONTENTS.
Christian Polygamy in the Sixteenth Century 177
Celestial Marriage 183
WASHINGTON CITY, D. C.
EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY ORSON PRATT,
at $1 per annum, invariably in advance.
THE SEER.
All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, See Ye, when He lifteth up an Ensign on the Mountains. --Isaiah xviii, 3.
Vol. 2. January, 1854. No. 1.
The Revelations of Jesus Christ: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-28287-3 - "But we ask, does it remain for a people who never had faith enough to call down one scrap of revelation from heaven, and for all they have now are indebted to the faith of another people...does it remain for them to say how much God has spoken and how much He has not spoken?" Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Two 1834-37 Pg.60
- Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Six 1843-44 Pg.365
When a man goes about prophesying, and commands men to obey his teachings, he must either be a true or false prophet. - Our website: http://www.artbulla.com
- "All men are liars who say they are of the true Church without the revelations of Jesus Christ and the Priesthood of Melchizedek, which is after the order of the Son of God." Joseph Smith; TPJS p. 376
- "He that can mark the power of Omnipotence, inscribed upon the heavens, can also see God's own handwriting in the sacred volume: and he who reads it oftenest will like it best, and he who is acquainted with it, will know the hand wherever he can see it...." (T.P.J.S., p. 56)
· 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (New Testament | Galatians 1:10 - 12)
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