Читать книгу Essentials in Church History - Joseph Fielding Smith - Страница 63

1. Amos 3:7. The Prophet Joseph Smith’s revision.

2. The erroneous idea which prevails in the world in relation to the Church, is set forth in Smith’s Bible Dictionary, Article—Church, vol. 1, p. 458, as follows: “We have seen that according to the scriptural view the Church is a holy kingdom, established by God on earth, of which Christ is the invisible King—it is a divinely organized body, the members of which are knit together amongst themselves, and joined to Christ their Head, by the Holy Spirit, who dwells in and animates it; it is a spiritual but visible society of men united by constant succession to those who were personally united to the Apostles, holding the same faith that the Apostles held, administering the same sacraments, and like them forming separate, but only locally separate, assemblies, for the public worship of God. This is the Church according to the Divine intention. But as God permits men to mar the perfection of his designs in their behalf, and as men have both corrupted the doctrines and broken the unity of the Church, we must not expect to see the Church of Holy Scripture actually existing in its perfection on earth. It is not to be found, thus perfect, either in the collected fragments of Christendom, or still less in any one of these fragments; though it is possible that one of those fragments more than another may approach the scriptural and Apostolic ideal which existed only until sin, heresy, and schism, had time sufficiently to develop themselves to do their work.”