Читать книгу Essentials in Church History - Joseph Fielding Smith - Страница 99

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Yet, when we stop to reflect, it is not strange that this message of light and truth should be rejected by the world, for the Lord had said long years before, “Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.” As for the priests, was not their craft in danger? The message left with the youthful seer by the God of heaven was most drastic. It had been declared in language that could be clearly understood, that the creeds of men were not in accord with his Gospel. This was not a message to please the religious teachers of the day. Moreover, the Vision had shattered the traditions of the times. The doctrines taught in the churches were emphatically contradicted and disproved. The world was teaching and believing that the canon of scripture was full; that there was not to be and could not be, more revelation; that the visitation of angels had ceased with the early Christian fathers, and such things as these had passed away forever. Again, the doctrine was taught that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost were incomprehensible, without body, parts and passions. A revelation of the Father and the Son as separate persons, each with a body tangible and in the form of the body of man, was destructive of this doctrine, as revelation was of the doctrine of the closed heavens. The world had held that perfection in religion and the organization of the Church of Christ was not to be expected, but that men were led by their own human reason to interpret the word of the Lord as set forth in the scriptures.