Scrap Book of Mormon Literature, Volume 2 (of 2). Religious Tracts
Religion
Scrap Book of Mormon Literature, Volume 2 (of 2). Religious Tracts
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Doctrines; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines; Latter Day Saints
Now, that which comes from God is truth. If Jesus {64} Christ has a
church on the earth under His direction and inspiration, containing
men whom He has appointed, who hold His authority, who are sent by His
word, and who have the divine authority to administer in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that church will
have the truth. It will not have error intermingled with it, because
it will be directed by Christ, being His Church. Men may build up a
church and call it the Church of Christ, but that does not make it so;
it is the church of the men who organized it. If John Wesley--a good
man, as I believe with all my heart, a mighty man, who did a great and
good work in the earth--organized a religious society and called it
the Church of Christ, that does not make it so, and it is nothing more
than the church of John Wesley. If other good men assemble together
and agree on points of doctrine and organize a religious society that
society is theirs. It is not God's unless He ordered it, revealed it,
and accepted it.
Oneness of the Church of Christ.
I think that these simple ideas will be received by this congregation
and by any reasonable person. If Jesus Christ had a church on the earth
in the first century, it was the Church that He established. There is
evidence that He did establish a church. By reading the New Testament
it is plain that He organized it Himself; therefore it was His Church.
He placed in it apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers,
(so we read in the epistle to the Ephesians, 4th chapter,) "for the
perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the
edifying of the body of Christ; till we all come in the unity of the
faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God." These men were sent
out to preach the Gospel without purse or scrip. They were commanded
to "go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature."
And the principles which they taught were the principles of Jesus
Christ. The plan of salvation that they introduced was divine. It was
not their own. When Paul preached to the Gentiles and Peter preached
to the Jews, they preached the same Gospel, the same doctrine, by
the same Spirit. The people who received their word and repented of
their sins, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, were all baptized by
one spirit into one body. There was but one body, no matter how many
members there were in it; there was but one church, no matter how many
branches there might be to it. The Church was one, the Gospel was one,
the God they worshipped was {65} one, the Savior was one. There was
"one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all;" and the
path that they walked in was the one way marked out by the Lord Jesus
Christ, who said, "Wide is the gate and broad is the way, that leadeth
to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because straight
is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few
there be that find it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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