The Articles of Faith: A Series of Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day SaintsTalmage, James E. (James Edward)
Religion
The Articles of Faith: A Series of Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Talmage, James E. (James Edward)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Doctrines; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines
=29.= In a glorious manifestation to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery,
given in the Kirtland Temple, April 3, 1836, there appeared unto them
Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death; he
declared unto them: "Behold, the time has fully come which was spoken
of by the mouth of Malachi, testifying that he (Elijah) should be sent
before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come, to turn the hearts
of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers, lest
the whole earth be smitten with a curse. Therefore the keys of this
dispensation are committed into your hands, and by this ye may know
that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the
doors."[441]
[441] Doc. and Cov. cx, 13-16.
=30. The Fathers and the Children Mutually Dependent.=--One of the
great principles underlying the doctrine of salvation for the dead is
that of the mutual dependence of the fathers and the children. As the
Prophet Joseph taught the Saints,[442] but for the establishment of a
connecting link between the departed fathers and the living children,
the earth would be smitten with a curse. The plan of God provides that
neither the children nor the fathers can alone be made perfect; and
the necessary union is effected through baptism and associated
ordinances for the dead. The manner in which the hearts of the
children and those of the fathers are turned toward one another is
made plain through these scriptures. As the children learn that
without the aid of their progenitors they cannot attain perfection,
assuredly will their hearts be opened, their faith will be kindled,
and good works will be attempted, for the redemption of their dead;
and the departed, learning from the ministers of the gospel laboring
among them, that they must depend upon their children as vicarious
saviors, will seek to sustain their still mortal representatives with
faith and prayer for the perfecting of those labors of love.
[442] Doc. and Cov. cxxviii, 18; see also this entire section and
sec. cxxvii.
=31.= And love, which is a power in itself, is thus intensified. Aside
from the emotions which are stirred within the soul by the presence of
the Divine, there are few feelings stronger and purer than the love
for kindred. Heaven would not be all we wish were family love unknown
there.[443] Affection there will differ from its earthly type, in
being deeper, stronger, purer. And thus in the mercy of God, His
erring, mortal children, who have taken upon themselves the name of
Christ on earth, may become, in a limited sphere, each a savior in the
house of his fathers, and that too by vicarious labor and sacrifice,
rendered in humility, and, as represented in the baptismal ordinance,
typical of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Redeemer.
[443] See Note 4.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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