Part 1

Produced by the Mormon Texts Project, http://bencrowder.net/books/mtp. Volunteers: Ben Crowder, Meridith Crowder, Tod Robbins.

JOSEPH SMITH

THE

PROPHET-TEACHER

A DISCOURSE

BY

ELDER B. H. ROBERTS

THE DESERET NEWS

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

1908

Copyright, 1908. By B. H. Roberts.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I. A GREAT POSSIBILITY.

II. HISTORICAL AMERICANS.

III. WHAT IS A PROPHET?

IV. RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL BELIEFS OF ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Revelation. Ideas of Deity. Of the Universe. Of Man. Man and His Salvation. Of the Significance of Salvation and Damnation.

V. THE PROPHET'S CORRECTION OF SECTARIAN ERRORS.

The Doctrine of Revelation. The Being and Kind of Being God Is. Creation, the Law of Substance. Of Man's Origin. Election and Reprobation.

VI. THE PROPHET'S PHILOSOPHICAL DOCTRINES.

The Prophet's Definition of Truth. As to Things--Existences. The Reign of Law. Change and Its Tendency. The Existence of Good and Evil. The Intelligent Entity. The Relationship of Intelligences. Man's Freedom. Eternity of Relations.

VII. THE PROPHET'S GENERALIZATIONS.

VIII. AN AMERICAN PROPHET.

America the Old World. The Constitution of the United States Inspired of God. America Fortified of God Against Other Nations.

DEDICATION.

TO MY MOTHER, ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HER EIGHTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1908.

For a long time, my Dear Mother, I have desired to couple remembrance of you with some of my works; and finally have chosen this Discourse upon our great Prophet-Teacher to carry with it that distinction. To all who read this Discourse, then, I desire to say that I love and honor you; and that your love for me has ever been an inspiration to my work.

JOSEPH SMITH THE PROPHET-TEACHER

A Discourse[A]

[Footnote A: This discourse was delivered at the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, on Sunday, December 22nd, 1907, at a Memorial Service held in honor of the one hundred and second anniversary of the Prophet's birth, 23rd December 1805.]

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Tomorrow will be the one hundred and second anniversary of the birth of Joseph Smith, whom most of you here present believe was a Prophet of God. I have been invited to say something about him on this occasion. It is not at all my intention to deal with the incidents of Joseph Smith's eventful life; these are familiar to you. If I could attain the full desire of my heart, I would like to set before you somewhat the value of this man as a teacher of great truths. I desire to speak of him as a Prophet-Teacher, that is, as a Prophet acting in his capacity of Teacher, a Prophet's highest and noblest office.

As an introduction to what I desire to say, I shall read a passage from a book quite famous for its literary merit--it has reached its ninth edition; also it is famous for the character sketches of prominent Americans of the early decades of the nineteenth century. The book, "Figures of the Past," was written by Josiah Quincy of the famous Quincy family of Massachusetts, a graduate of Harvard, 1821; mayor of Boston from 1845 to 1849. Mr. Quincy visited Nauvoo in May, 1844, forty-three days previous to the martyrdom of the Prophet, and though his "Figures of the Past" was not published until 1882, the year of his death, yet his recollections of the Prophet and his impressions of Nauvoo were drawn from his journal, written at the time of that visit, and numerous letters written to his friends about the same period. Mr. Quincy places his pen-portrait of "Joseph Smith at Nauvoo" with similar portraits of such eminent Americans as John Adams, Daniel Webster, John Randolph, Andrew Jackson, and the French soldier and statesman, Lafayette. The passage I am going to read is the opening paragraph of the chapter on "Joseph Smith at Nauvoo."

I.

A GREAT POSSIBILITY.

"It is by no means improbable that some future text-book, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet. And the reply, absurd as it doubtless seems to most men now living, may be an obvious commonplace to their descendants. History deals in surprises and paradoxes quite as startling as this. The man who established a religion in this age of free debate, who was and is today accepted by hundreds of thousands as a direct emissary from the Most High--such a rare human being is not to be disposed of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets."

Reading that passage a few days ago, I asked the question: Is this rather remarkable semi-prediction of Quincy's in the way of fulfillment? Tomorrow will be the one hundred and second anniversary of our Prophet's birth. It is more than one hundred years since he came to earth, and sixty-three years since he departed from it. What evidence is there before the world that would lead any serious-minded person to believe that this prediction I have read in your hearing may find fulfillment? "Certainly," men will begin to say, "enough time has elapsed to develop the character of your Prophet's work; whether he built of wood, hay, stubble, or of gold or precious stones. Is his influence to be merely transient and local or did he really deal with some universal and permanent truths that must remain to influence mankind?"

II.

HISTORICAL AMERICANS.

As introductory to these considerations, let us think about some of these historical Americans whose influence upon their countrymen is to be eclipsed, perhaps, by the "Mormon Prophet." Among our patriots and statesmen will be remembered Patrick Henry, with his doctrine of the inherent right of revolution against intolerable oppression; Jefferson, and his "Declaration of Independence" and the "Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom," the principle of which finally found its way into our national and state Constitutions; Alexander Hamilton and his political interpretation of the constitutional powers of our general government; Webster and his doctrine of the sacredness of the American Union of States--the statesman of nationalism; Monroe, with the doctrine which bears his name, politically segregating the American continents from Europe, and dedicating the western world to free institutions; Lincoln, with his doctrine of the rightfulness of personal freedom for every man, woman and child of Adam's race--the doctrine of the universal application of the self-evident principles of the Declaration of Independence--the right of men to live, to be free, to pursue happiness--principles he invoked in behalf of the African race in the United States. Among inventors will be remembered Fulton, Whitney, Morse and Edison; among the philosophers, practical and speculative, Franklin, Emerson and John Fiske; among the poets, Longfellow, Poe, Whitman, and Lowell; among the preachers and theologians, Jonathan Edwards and his cruel orthodoxy; Wm. E. Channing and his Unitarian liberalism; Henry Ward Beecher and his successor, Lyman Abbott, with their efforts at reconciliation of Christianity and evolution.

This enumeration does not exhaust the list of historical Americans who have powerfully influenced their countrymen, but it will not be doubted that they represent the very chief of the respective groups that have so influenced their countrymen.

Thinking of the achievements of these great Americans, and weighing the influence of each upon his countrymen, do you not really think, even with Josiah Quincy on our side, it looks presumptuous in us to hold that Joseph Smith may yet exert a greater influence over his countrymen than any one of these, his compatriots? That is the question I propose to put on trial here this afternoon.

III.

WHAT IS A PROPHET?

First of all, a word of definition: This term "prophet"--what do you make of it? Generally, when you speak of a "prophet," you have in mind a predictor of future events, one who foretells things that are to come to pass, and indeed that is, in part, the office of a prophet--in part what is expected of him. But really this is the very least of his duties. A prophet should be a "forth-teller" rather than a fore-teller. Primarily he must be a teacher of men, an expounder of the things of God. The inspiration of the Almighty must give him understanding, and when given he must expound it to his people, to his age. He must be a Seer that can make others see. A Teacher sent of God to instruct a people--to enlighten an age. This is the primary office of a prophet. And now I want to show you how well and faithfully our Prophet performed such duties.

To do this it is necessary that I say something about the ideas prevailing in the world at the Prophet's advent among men--I mean as to their religions and philosophies, the doctrines by which they were influenced. And this not only as to truth, but also as to error--and chiefly as to error, for, among other things, a prophet must correct the errors of men. It is a capital method of teaching truth--this correcting of errors.

IV.

RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL BELIEFS OF ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

REVELATION: At the commencement of the nineteenth century the general idea prevailed in Christendom that a great while ago a very definite revelation from God had been given; angels had visited the earth and imparted divine knowledge to men; the Spirit of the Almighty had rested upon some and had given them understanding by which they were able to declare the mind of God and the will of God. These were prophets. Some prophets there were who even talked with God "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." So communed Moses with God (Ex. 33:11); so, too, Isaiah (Isa. 6:1-6). But while this belief as to revelation in the past everywhere prevailed, orthodox Christendom was equally certain that no revelation was being given in their day; and not only was no revelation then being given, but neither would there be any revelation given in future time. "The volume of revelation is completed and forever closed," was dogma in all Christendom. There would be no future visitation of angels. No more would the heavens be opened, or man stand face to face with his God, or speak to his Lord as a man speaketh to his friend. All this was ended. The canon of scripture was completed, and forever closed. That canon consisted of the Old and New Testaments; all other books were secular--this alone sacred. There was no other word of God.

IDEAS OF DEITY: In regard to deity, Christian men, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, believed that God was an incorporeal, immaterial being, without body--that is, not material, not matter; without parts; without passions. And yet, with gravest inconsistency, they held that God was of love the essence; that He loved righteousness, that He hated iniquity; that He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life! Notwithstanding this "love" and this "hate" God was without passions! He was, too, according to men's creeds, without form. Notwithstanding Moses, one of the God-inspired teachers of men, said that "God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him;" and Jesus, by a prophet of the New Testament, was declared to be the express image of God's person (Hebrews i: 2, 3). Notwithstanding this, I say, men, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, were possessed of a "morbid terror" of anthropomorphism--the ascription of human form, feeling or qualities to God--as if they could escape it and still hold belief in the Bible revelation of God! Or, for matter of that, hold to any doctrine of God taught either by religion or philosophy. At the very least, if the God-idea survive at all, God must be held to possess consciousness, both consciousness of self, and of other than self--self-consciousness, and other-consciousness; also He must be thought of as possessed of volition; and what are these but human qualities, which present God to our thought as anthropomorphic? Strip God of these attributes and He is reduced to the atheists' "force;" to blind, purposeless force, that can sustain no possible personal relationship whatsoever to men or other things in the universe. As one writer in a great magazine recently said: "If we are to know the Supreme Reality at all, it can only be through the attribution to Him of qualities analogous to, though infinitely transcending, the qualities which we recognize as highest in man, and consequently [highest] in the world as we know it."

But I must pass by these inconsistencies of the creeds of men. I shall have no time to discuss them. Indeed, I must ask you to think with me in headlines, and to think fast. We have no time for argument. We shall barely have time to pass over the ground proposed, and must depend upon the truth of our statements being self-evident, or conceded to be accurate statements of fact.

OF THE UNIVERSE: Respecting the universe, Christendom, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, believed that it was created of God from nothing, and that no great while ago. "Calling forth from nothing" was held to be indeed the meaning of "create." God transcended the universe; was, in fact, outside of it; was what an American philosopher (Fiske) some years afterwards called an "Absentee God." Absent, "except for a little jog or poke here and there in the shape of a special providence."

"Down to a period almost within living memory," says Andrew Dixon White, in his great work, "Warfare of Science with Theology," "it was held, virtually 'always, everywhere, and by all,' that the universe, as we now see it, was created literally and directly by the voice or hands of the Almighty, or by both--out of nothing--in an instant, or in six days, or in both--about four thousand years before the Christian era--and for the convenience of the dwellers upon the earth, which was at the base and foundation of the whole structure." Such were the views of men concerning the universe during the period here considered.

OF MAN: Respecting man, it was taught that while he was created of God, his origin was purely an earthly one, his body made of the earth, a spirit breathed into him when his body was made, and so man became a living soul. All taught that he was a created thing, a creature.

MAN AND HIS SALVATION: As to man's salvation, some of the creeds taught that God, of His own volition, had foreordained that some men and angels were doomed to everlasting destruction, and others predestined to eternal life and glory. Not "for any good or ill" that they had done or could do, but their fate was fixed by the volition of God alone. These whom He would save, He would move by irresistible grace to their salvation; those whom He had pre-determined should be damned might not escape, struggle they never so persistently; no prayers could save them; no act of obedience might mitigate their punishment; no hungering and thirsting after righteousness, bring them to blessedness; they must perish, and that eternally! Those who perish in ignorance of Christ--the heathen races--were damned. "The heathen in mass, with no single definite and unquestionable exception on record, are evidently strangers to God, and going down to death in an unsaved condition. The presumed possibility of being saved without a knowledge of Christ remains, after 1,800 years, a possibility illustrated by no example." So said those who expounded this creed. Others, still, taught that infants dying in infancy without receiving Christian baptism were damned, and that everlastingly. By some, unbaptized infants were denied burial in sanctified ground. "Hell's Half Acre" was a reality in some Christian graveyards.

OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SALVATION AND DAMNATION: Salvation and damnation meant, as to the former, the attainment of heaven; as to the latter, assignment to hell. The former, judging from the descriptions of it, a mysterious, indefinite state "enjoyed" somewhere "beyond the bounds of time and space * * * the saints secure abode;" the latter, a very definite place, with very definite and very hot conditions, that had power to endure and that everlastingly, to the eternal misery of the damned. Time might come and time might go, but this torture, undiminished, went on forever. If one gained heaven, even by ever so small a margin, he entered upon a complete possession of all its unutterable joys, equally with the angels and the holiest of saints. If he missed heaven, even by ever so narrow a margin, he was doomed to everlasting torment equally with the wickedest of men and vilest of devils, and there was no deliverance for him.

These were some of the prevailing ideas, of the philosophy and the religion of men at the birth of the Prophet. A philosophy inadequate for any reasonable accounting for the universe. A religion that was derogatory to God and debasing to man--errors of both philosophy and religion that it was, I believe, the mission of our Prophet to correct. Let us follow him as he proceeds with his corrections, his setting over against every error above enumerated the truth received of God.

V.

THE PROPHET'S CORRECTION OF SECTARIAN ERRORS.

THE DOCTRINE OF REVELATION: Against the sectarian dogma of the cessation of revelation, Joseph Smith proclaimed the reopening of the heavens. Against the doctrine that angels would no more visit the earth, he asserted the visitation of angels to him, revealing the existence of the Book of Mormon, a new volume of Scripture. Other angels brought to the Prophet the keys of authority and power held by them in former dispensations. So came John the Baptist with the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood; Peter, James and John, with the keys of the Melchisedek Priesthood; Moses, with the keys of the gathering of Israel, and so following. Against the doctrine of a closed volume of Scripture, Joseph Smith asserted the existence of, and the truth of the American volume of Scripture, the Book of Mormon. Against this whole narrow, bigoted idea of revelation held by the Christian world, he proclaimed a larger view. Instead of holding that a few prophets among the Hebrews had been visited of God and received divine inspiration he represented God as saying:

"Thou fool, that shall say, A Bible, a Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible! Have ye obtained a Bible, save it were by the Jews? Know ye not that there are more nations than one; know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men; yea, even upon all the nations of the earth? For I command all men, both in the east and in the west * * * and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them. * * * Behold, I will speak unto the Jews, and they shall write it; and I will also speak unto the Nephites and they shall write it; and I will also speak unto the other tribes of the house of Israel, which I have led away, and they shall write it; and I will also speak unto all nations of the earth, and they shall write it."

Joseph Smith also represents one of the Nephite prophets as saying:

"Behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word; yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true."

This doctrine unites in one splendid brotherhood all the Seekers after God, all those who received inspiration from the Most High and were sent forth from the Divine Presence to instruct their fellow men. Joseph Smith, I say, unites their hands in a splendid brotherhood of the God-inspired men of this world. Not that all the prophets among the various races of men were equally inspired; not that all came with a fulness of truth; not that all had the gospel of Jesus Christ. But if they brought not with their message the effulgent brightness of an all-glorious day, they brought something of twilight which dispelled some of the murkiness of the night in which the men of their respective races had walked; and those who have groped in the density of darkness know how grateful is the twilight, how much better it is than darkness. How noble is this view of God's hand-dealings with the children of men in respect of revelation, as compared with that narrow, bigoted view prevailing at the beginning of the nineteenth century, which held that the Hebrew Scriptures contained all the word of God delivered to the inhabitants of the earth!

THE BEING AND KIND OF BEING GOD IS: Against the dogma that God was an incorporeal, immaterial, passionless being, the Prophet announced the splendid doctrine of anthropomorphism--God in the human form, and possessed of human qualities, but sanctified and perfected. In the first great revelation which opened this last dispensation our Prophet beheld Father and Son as separate persons, distinct from each other; persons in the form of men, but more glorious and more splendid, of course, than words could describe them to be. All through the revelations received, and all through his discourses, the Prophet reaffirms the old doctrine of the Scriptures, the doctrine of all the prophets, asserting that man indeed was created in the image of God, and that God possessed human qualities, consciousness, will, love, mercy, justice; together with power and glory--in a word, a Man "exalted and perfected."

CREATION--THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE: In opposition to the doctrine that God had created the universe of nothing, the Prophet asserted the doctrine of the eternity of substance and energy and law, and their infinite extension throughout all space; that creation is but the wisely wrought changes made in the modes of existences, which are themselves--in their essence--eternal, the changes constantly tending to higher developments, from good to better, or else ministering to that end.

OF MAN'S ORIGIN: Against the doctrine which ascribed a merely earthly origin for man, body and spirit; that taught that the intelligent entity in man--the mind--was a created thing--against this, I say, our Prophet taught that "Intelligence is not created or made, neither, indeed, can be." He taught that the intelligent entity in man, which men call "spirit" and sometimes "soul," is a self-existing entity, uncreated and eternal as God is, placed in the way by Higher Intelligences,--and guided by their love and counsels,--of increasing his own intelligence and power and glory and joy. Such he represented man to be, and once more crowned him with the dignity belonging to his Divine and eternal nature.