The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsTalmage, James E. (James Edward)
Religion
The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Talmage, James E. (James Edward)
Latter Day Saint churches; Latter Day Saints
We have seen in the light of scriptural demonstration that, except
through compliance with the laws and ordinances of the Gospel as
enunciated and prescribed by the Lord Jesus Christ, no man can attain a
place in the Kingdom of God.
What then of the dead, who have lived and passed without so much as
hearing that there is a Gospel of salvation or a Savior of the race?
Are they to be hopelessly and forever damned? If so, the phrase
"eternal justice" should be stricken from Scripture and literature, and
"infamous injustice" substituted.
Think of the myriads who died before and at the Deluge, of the hosts
of Israel who knew only the Law and died in ignorance of the Gospel,
and count in with them the millions of their pagan contemporaries; then
think of the generations who passed away during the long dark night of
spiritual apostasy, predicted by prophecy and attested by history; and
contemplate the heathen and but partly civilized tribes of the present
day. Are these, to whom no knowledge of the Gospel has come, to be
under eternal condemnation in consequence?
In the hereafter the saved and the lost are to be segregated. The
Scriptures so avouch. Therefore, were there no salvation for these who
have died in ignorance of Christ's Atonement and His Gospel, these
benighted spirits could never associate with their descendants who have
been privileged to live in an age of Gospel enlightenment, and who
have made themselves eligible for salvation by faith and its fruitage,
obedience.
I have read of a heathen king, who, through the zealous efforts of
missionaries whom he had tolerantly admitted to his realm, was inclined
to accept what had been presented to him as Christianity and make it
the religion of his people. Though he yearned for the blessed state of
salvation which the new religion seemed to offer, he was profoundly
affected by the thought that his ancestors, the dead chieftains of his
tribe, together with all the departed of his people, had gone to their
graves unsaved. When he was told that while he and his subjects could
reach heaven, those who had died before had surely gone to hell, he
exclaimed with a loud oath "Then to hell I will go with them."
He spoke as a brave man. Though, had he been more fully informed he
would have known that the Gospel of Jesus Christ entails no such dire
certainty; but that, on the contrary, the spirits of his noble dead
would have opportunity of learning, in the world of the disembodied,
the saving truth which in the flesh had never saluted their ears.
The Gospel is being preached to the dead. Missionary service in the
spirit world has been in progress since its inauguration by the
disembodied Christ while His crucified body lay in the tomb. (John
5:25.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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