The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-07-07
REPUDIATING REVELATION.

The Deseret News, in its shifty cita-
tion of John Calvin ms an authority
in the Presbyterian church, and its
reference to other church writers Of
authority, claims that inasmuch as these
may not now be necessarily accepted
as guides in all respects, and their writ
ings as wholly standard and correct
doctrine, therefore the Mormon church
and the Mormon people arc Just as much
entitled to repudiate or TO refuse to be
governed by the utterances Of their
leaders and spokesmen in times past,
We must object. however, to the
News's position in this, The situations
are not the least akin for there was no
pretense that John Calvin, or any of
those church leaders, was directly in
spircd Of God or was prophet seer
and revelator; not one of them was ever
sustained as such by any body of
people or claimed 10 be such by any
person. it is different, however, on the
Mormon side OF the case. The speakers
and writers which they are now so
prone TO repudiate and reject were sus-
tanned by them, personally, officially,
formally, and legally $50 far as there
is any legality in their church,, as
prophets, seers, and revclators More
than this, the constant pretense is that
when their speakers get up to talk to
the Saints, the words they utter are
put in their mouths by God Himself.
That is to say, that they are moved
upon by the Spirit and they do not
know when they rise what it is they
are going TO say, but wait for the in
spiration to come from above, before
they give utterance to the thing that
is given 10 them to speak
In view, therefore, of the official sus.
tanning of these Mormon leaders, speak
ers and writers as prophets, seers, and
revelators; in view of the claim that
what they say is given them to say
by God Himself, it is utterly inconsist-
ent and contradictory for them TO un-
dertake later on to repudiate anything
that is said or written by these per
sons whom they have so sustained, and
who under their claim have been in
spired i'll their utterances by the spirit
of God Himself.
1t is contrary TO ethics and common
sense to compare the utterances of men
so sustained and inspired with the ut
terances of mere men like John Calvin
and others, who themselves laid no
claim to inspiration, but merely to
learning and the freedom of thought
and reason that led them TO the con-
clusions which they eXpounded. There
IS nothing in common with the writer's
and speakers of these two classes. Cal
vim and other church authorities were
all very well in their time aud are all
very well now SO far as what they
promulgated is consistent with later
evolution. But TO refuse TO consider all
their words as binding is nothing like
repudiating the words of prophets,
seers, and rcvelators and men who
speak by direct inspiration Of God To
repudiate these is the same thing as
repudiating Scripture; and until the
Deseret News can bring forward some
example OF the ministers refusing TO be
bound by the authority of the Old or
New Testament, it is idle for it to
claim the same liberty to repudiate the
seers, revelators, and inspired
men of its own church that others have
to repudiate men who merely wrote
from human learning and from human
thought and reason.
Let us have like compared with like.
And if inspiration and revelation are
to be repudiated, let that be the text,
and let the reputation be direct and
specific as to the revelation and in
spiration that is to be repudiated If
the Mormon chiefs claim the right to
repudiate that which they have accept
ed and sustained as divine, and want to
Justify their reputation by citing "the
world - and ''our enemes,' let them
cite some revelation or inspiration from
God that the Christian world has re-
pudiated