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II.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE CHURCH TO THE CHRISTIAN SECTS: THE DOCTRINE OF TWO CHURCHES ONLY.

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FOREWORD.

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The following is an address delivered at the seventy-sixth Annual Conference of the Church, held at Salt Lake City, in April, 1906. The remarks consider two very important statements in our authoritative books. The first one is found in the Pearl of Great Price, where the prophet Joseph states what the answer to his question was, when asking the Lord which of the sects was the true Church, and which he should join. Of that incident he said:

"I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt:"

The second statement is in the Book of Mormon, where the declaration is made that,

"There are, save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God, belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth."

The first of these statements, it is claimed, not only "unchurches all Christians," but proclaims the universal corruption of individual Christians. The second statement is generally supposed to stigmatize the Church of Rome as the church of the devil. Both these questions are considered in the article which follows.