Outlines Of Ecclesiastical History - free ebook by B. H. (Brigham Henry) Roberts

OUTLINES OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

BY ELDER B. H. ROBERTS AUTHOR OF "The Life of John Taylor" "The Gospel" "New Witness for God" "Missouri Persecutions" "Rise and Fall of Nauvoo," etc. THIRD EDITION SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH. 1902....

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DEDICATION

TO THE SEVENTIES: THAT BODY OF MEN UPON WHOM—UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES— DEVOLVES THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PREACHING THE GOSPEL, AND DEFENDING THE TRUTH IN ALL THE WORLD, THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. Before you take up the study of OUTLINES OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, I beg leave to call your attention to the structure of the work, and the purpose for which it was written. First, then, as to its structure. The work is divided into four parts, each with a distinct idea runni

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SECTION I.

1. Birth of Messiah. —Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world, was born, most probably, in the year of Rome 753; at a period of the year corresponding to our month of April (see notes 1, 2, end of section). The place of his birth was Bethlehem [Beth-le-hem], [ 1 ] a small town about four miles south of Jerusalem. The birth-place of Messiah was foretold by Micah [Mi-kah], the prophet, more than seven hundred years before the event, in the following prophecy: But thou, Bethlehem Ephra

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Section II.[11]

1. State of the Religious World at Messiah's Birth. —At the time of the birth of the Son of God, the enfeebled world was tottering on its foundations. The national religions which had satisfied the parents, no longer proved sufficient for the children. The new generations could not repose contented within the ancient forms. The gods of every nation, when transported to Rome—then the dominant political power in the world—there lost their oracles, as the nations themselves had there lost their lib

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SECTION III.

1. Childhood and Youth of Messiah. —Returning from Egypt in obedience to the commandment of God, Joseph, the husband of Mary, with the infant Savior, went into Galilee, and lived at Nazareth—the most despised village of the most despised province in all Palestine. (Note 1, end of section.) Of his childhood but little information can be obtained from any authentic source. All that may be learned from the biographies in the Gospels is that after the settlement in Nazareth, the child grew and waxed

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SECTION IV.

1. The Temptations of Jesus. —After his baptism Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he fasted for forty days and forty nights. Then at the moment of his great physical weakness Lucifer came tempting him, but all the allurements of the wily foe were thwarted, from the challenge to turn the stones into bread to the offer of the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them. After his failure to seduce Jesus to sin, Lucifer left him—"for a season," and angels came and administered

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SECTION V.

1. The Common People Hear Jesus Gladly. —The mission of Jesus was full of comfort to the poor. As one of the signs that he was the promised Messiah, he said to a delegation of John's disciples—"The poor have the gospel preached to them." [ 43 ] He claimed to be anointed of the Lord to that work; and in doing it was fulfilling that which had been predicted by the prophets. [ 44 ] He often reproved the rich, not merely because they were rich, however, but because of their pride and hypocrisy which

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SECTION VI.

1. The Resurrection. —Notwithstanding the sealed sepulchre, the armed watch, on the third day after his burial, the Son of God arose from the dead, as he himself predicted he would. [ 56 ] A number of women coming to the sepulchre early in the morning, for the purpose of finishing the work of embalming his body, found the grave untenanted and the angel present who announced the resurrection of the Lord; and commanded them to go and inform his disciples that he was risen from the dead and would g

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SECTION VII.

1. Vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve Filled. —The first official business which occupied the attention of the authorities of the church after the ascension of the Lord—according to our Christian annals—was filling up the quorum of the twelve. Judas by his treason had forfeited his apostleship and was dead, and hence it became necessary to ordain another to fill his place. Peter when presenting this matter before the church, appeared to lay some stress upon the necessity of choosing some one of

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SECTION I.

In Part I, our narrative was confined mainly to those propitious circumstances which made for the successful introduction of the gospel and the founding of the church of Christ. In Part II, we are to deal with those adverse events which led finally to the subversion of the Christian religion. We commence with the 1. Persecution of the Christians by the Jews. —The Messiah forewarned his disciples that they would be persecuted by the world, pointed out the reasons for it, and comforted them by rem

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SECTION II.

1. Condition of the Church in the Second Century. —During the second century the church had many seasons of immunity from persecution. The Roman emperors for the most part were of a mild and equitable character, and at the beginning of the century there were no laws against the Christians, as those enacted both by Nero and Domitian had been repealed. The first by the senate, the second by his successor, Nerva. [ 15 ] Still it must not be supposed that the saints were free from persecution. Their

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SECTION III.

1. The Accusations of the Pagans. —The simplicity of the Christian religion was made a reproach to the church of Christ by the pagan priests. The saints were accused of atheism, an accusation which found support in the fact that the primitive church had no temples, no incense, no sacrifice, no incantations, pomp or ceremony in its worship. "The Christians have no temples, therefore they have no gods," was an argument sufficiently convincing to the heathen. It was but natural, perhaps, that the C

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SECTION IV.

1. Early Church Organization Not Perpetuated. —We have already stated in Part I of this work that the church organization established by Messiah—consisting of apostles, prophets, seventies, bishops, etc.—was designed to be perpetual. It is a singular fact, however, that aside from filling up the vacancy in the quorum of the twelve—occasioned by the fall of Judas Iscariot—there is no account in any of the writings of the apostles or fathers of the first centuries—on the eastern hemisphere [ 43 ]

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SECTION V.

1. Simplicity of Public Worship Changed. —The public worship of the primitive Christians, as we have seen, [ 67 ] was very simple, but its simplicity was soon corrupted. The bishops and other public teachers in the third century, framed their discourses and exhortations according to the rules of Grecian eloquence; "and were better adapted," says a learned writer, [ 68 ] "to call forth the admiration of the rude multitude who love display, than to amend the heart. And that no folly and no sensele

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SECTION VI.

1. Departure from Moral Precepts of the Gospel. —There was as wide a departure from the moral precepts of the gospel among the Christians as there was from the doctrines, ordinances and government of the church. From the nature of the reproofs, the admonitions and warnings to be found in the epistles of the apostles to the churches, one may see that while they yet lived the saints were prone to wickedness, and great errors in regard to moral conduct crept into the churches. The writings of the e

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SECTION VII.

We have considered those events that occurred in the church by which its form and spirit of government were altered, its doctrines corrupted, its ordinances changed, and its truths and powers subverted. We now turn to the scriptures to show that all these things were predicted by the apostles and prophets of God, being foreseen by the spirit of revelation. 1. False Teachers to Arise in the Church. —On the occasion of Paul's last visit to Ephesus, he had the elders assembled, and in the course of

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SECTION 1.

The Age of Darkness. —We have not found it necessary to our purpose to dwell upon the particular events of ecclesiastical history from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries. Those were the days of spiritual darkness of this earth. The papal power was supreme, and with an iron hand it ruled the nations. Some idea of its arrogance and power may be conjectured from the fact that in the eleventh century [ 1 ] Henry IV, of Germany, the greatest temporal monarch in the world, in that age, stood for thr

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SECTION II.

1. Controversy on the Question of Grace. —It is now for us to consider the principles at issue in the Reformation. Luther at the first began his opposition to the pope by denouncing indulgences, and there can be no question but he and every other honest Christian had just cause of complaint and indignation against this infamous traffic, and against the church for permitting it. Yet it cannot be denied that there was a wide difference between the doctrine of the Catholic church respecting indulge

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SECTION III.

1. The Growth of Luther's Rebellion. —The thing most important, the one which drew with it the gravest consequences, and which led to the greatest good produced by the Reformation, was the rebellion of Luther against the authority of the pope. He did not come out in open rebellion at the first, but arrived at that state by gradual and imperceptible steps. When his opposition to the sale of indulgences met with reproof from the pontiff, he appealed from the pope ill-informed to the pope better-in

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SECTION I.

1. The Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. —By a dispensation, in connection with the work of God, we mean "the opening of the heavens to men, the bestowing of the Holy Priesthood with all its powers upon them, and the organization and building up of the church of Christ upon the earth, for the salvation of all who will obey the gospel." [ 1 ] By the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times we mean the last dispensation, the one in which all things, in Christ, whether in heaven or in earth, shal

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SECTION II.

1. The Restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood. —While engaged in the work of translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph and Oliver found reference made in the record to baptism for the remission of sins; and on the 15th of May, 1829, they went into the woods to inquire of the Lord about it. While thus engaged a messenger from heaven descended in a cloud of light and announced himself to be John, the same that is called the Baptist, [ 10 ] in the New Testament. He placed his hands upon the heads of Jo

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SECTION III.

1. First Mission to the Lamanites. —At the conference held in Fayette, New York, September, 1830, the first mission to the Lamanites was appointed. In the revelation [ 40 ] which corrected the evils introduced by Hiram Page's "seer stone," Oliver Cowdery was appointed to a mission to the Lamanites; and before the conference was adjourned another revelation as given appointing Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, Jun., and Ziba Peterson to accompany him. Great promises are contained in the Book of Mor

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SECTION IV.

1. Persecution. —From the very commencement the work of the Lord in these last days met with the most violent opposition. No sooner did Joseph Smith declare that he had received a revelation from God than it brought upon him the ridicule and wrath of many who heard of it. The stream of hatred grew broader and deeper as the work progressed. Joseph himself endured many vexatious persecutions, and those who believed in his teachings were doomed to share them. The first general persecution of the ch

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SECTION V.

1. Priesthood. —Priesthood is power which God gives to man, by which man becomes an agent of God; an authorized officer in his kingdom, with the right and power to teach the laws of the kingdom, and administer the ordinances by which foreigners and aliens are admitted to citizenship. It gives man the right and power to act in God's stead—thus, If a man endowed with the proper degree of the priesthood takes one who believes the gospel and baptizes him for the remission of sins in the name of the

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SECTION VI.

Having paused to consider the church as a system of ecclesiastical government, it now remains for us to return to the historical development of the work of the Lord as connected with the dispensation of the fullness of times. 1. The Kirtland Temple. —During the winter of 1835-36 the temple at Kirtland was completed. This was the first temple built by the church in this dispensation. It was a stone structure, eighty by sixty, and fifty feet to the square. At the front was a tower one hundred and

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SECTION VII.

The appearing of Moses in Kirtland Temple and his restoring the keys for the gathering of Israel, marks the inauguration of a mighty work within the work of God, in this dispensation, and gives a reality to many of the predictions of the ancient prophets. To fully comprehend this great work it will be necessary to call the attention of the student to the Israelites, and a brief outline of their history. 1. Who Are Israel. —The children of Israel are the descendants of Abraham through the loins o

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SECTION VIII.

1. Salvation for the Dead. —The appearing of Elijah the prophet, in the Kirtland Temple on the 3rd of April, 1836, was the introduction of another great work connected with the redemption of the human race. That work is Salvation for the dead, the keys of which were given to the Prophet Joseph Smith by Elijah, on the occasion of the appearing mentioned above. That event was an epoch in the history of this great dispensation. It began a revolution in the theology of the Christian world. Up to tha

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SECTION IX.

1. The Breaking up at Kirtland. —The keys of knowledge respecting the great doctrines treated in the last two sections were received in the Kirtland temple; and for a time it appeared that the Saints would long enjoy the blessings of their temple and the communion and instruction of heavenly messengers. But not so. With prosperity which attended them there, came pride, envyings, jealousies and heart-burnings. Their temporal prosperity existed but a brief period. It was carried away by the wave o

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