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(Bryan’s note: This article will be a part of the original whole)

THE MORMONITES…(continued)
  Moroni writes the Book of Ether, containing an account of the people of Jared, who escaped from the building of the tower of Babel unconfounded in his language. These people of Jared God marched before in a cloud, and directed them through the wilderness, and instructed them to build barges to cross seas; and finally they built eight barges, air-tight, and were commanded to make a hole in the top to admit air, and one in the bottom to admit water; and in them were put 16 windows of molten stone, which, when touched by the finger of Jesus, became as transparent as glass, and gave them light under "the mountain waves," and when above the water. He that touched these stones appeared unto the brother of Jared, and said: "Behold I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son." Two of these stones were sealed up with the plates, and became the spectacles of Joseph Smith, according to a prediction uttered before Abraham was born. It was also foretold in the Book of Ether, written by Moroni, that he that should find the plates should have the privilege of shewing "the plates unto those who shall assist to bring forth this work; and unto three shall they be shewn by the power of God: wherefore they shall of a surety known that these things are true." p. 548.

  And the eight barges, air-tight, made like ducks, after swimming and diving 334 days, arrived on the coasts of the land of promise. The Book of Ether relates the wars and carnage amongst these people. In the lapse of generations they counted two millions of mighty men, besides women and children, slain; and finally, they were all killed but one, and he fell to the earth as if he had no life. So ends the Book of Ether, p. .573.

  The book of Moroni details the manner of ordaining priests and teachers, the manner of administering ordinances, and the epistles of Mormon to his son Moroni. Moroni seals up the record A. D. 420, and assures the world that spiritual gifts shall never cease, only through unbelief. And when the plates of Nephi should be dug out of the earth, he declares that "men should ask God the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, If these things were not true." "If with a sincere heart and real intent, having faith in Christ, such prayers are made, ye shall know the truth of all things." p. 586.

  The testimony of Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, asserting that they saw the plates, is appended. They also testify that they know [90] that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice had declared it unto them.
Another testimony is appended, signed by four Whitmers, one Hiram Page, and three Smiths, affirming that they saw the plates, handled them, and that Smith has got the plates in his possession.

  Such is an analysis of the book of Mormon, the bible of the Mormonites. For noticing of which I would have asked forgiveness from all my readers, had not several hundred persons of different denominations believed in it. On this account alone has it become necessary to notice it, and for the same reason we must examine its pretensions to divine authority; for it purports to be a revelation from God. And in the first place, we shall examine its internal evidences.

INTERNAL EVIDENCES
  It admits the Old and New Testaments to contain the revelations, institutions, and commandments of God to Patriarchs, Jews, and Gentiles, down to the year 1830--and always, as such, speaks of them and quotes them. This admission at once blasts its pretensions to credibility. For no man with his eyes open can admit both books to have come from God. Admitting the Bible now received to have come from God, it is impossible that the book of Mormon came from the same Author. For the following reasons:--

1. Smith, its real author, as ignorant and as impudent a knave as ever wrote a book, betrays the cloven foot in basing his whole book upon a false fact, or a pretended fact, which makes God a liar. It is this:--With the Jews, God made a covenant at Mount Sinai, and instituted a priesthood, and a high priesthood. The priesthood he gave to the tribe of Levi, and the high priesthood to Aaron and his sons for an everlasting priesthood. He separated Levi, and covenanted to give him this office irrevocably while ever the temple stood, or till the Messiah came. "Then, says God Moses shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall wait on their priest's office, and the stranger, (the person of another family,) who cometh nigh, shall be put to death." Numbers iii. 10. "And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near; for them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him, and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried." Deut. xxi. 5. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with 250 men of renown, rebelled against a part of the institution of the priesthood, and the Lord destroyed them in the presence of the whole congregation. This was to be a memorial that no stranger invade any part of the office of the priesthood. Num. xvi. 49. "Fourteen thousand and seven hundred" of the people were destroyed by a plague for murmuring against this memorial.
   
   In the 18th chapter of Numbers the Levites are again given to Aaron and his sons, and the priesthood confirmed to them with this threat--"The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death." "Even Jesus, says Paul, were he on earth, could not be a priest, for he was of a tribe concerning which Moses spake nothing of priesthood." Heb. vii. 13, 14. So irrevocable was the grant of the priesthood to Levi, and of the high priesthood to Aaron, that no stranger dare approach the altar of God which Moses established. Hence, Jesus himself was excluded from officiating as priest on earth according to the law.
   
   This Joseph Smith overlooked in his impious fraud, and makes his hero Lehi spring from Joseph. And just as soon as his sons return with the roll of his lineage, ascertaining that he was of the tribe of Joseph, he and his sons acceptably "offer sacrifices and burnt offerings to the Lord," p. 15. Also it is repeated, p. 18--Nephi became chief artificer, ship-builder and mariner; was scribe, prophet, priest, and king unto his own people, and "consecrated Jacob and Joseph the sons of his father priests to God and teachers--almost 600 years before the fulness of the times of the Jewish economy was completed, p. 72. Nephi represents himself withal as "under the law of Moses," p. 105. They build a temple in the new world, and in 55 years after they leave Jerusalem, make a new priesthood which God approbates. A high [91] priest is also consecrated and yet they are all the while "teaching the law of Moses, and exhorting the people to keep it!!! p. 146, 209.
   
   Thus God is represented as instituting, approbating, and blessing a new priesthood from the tribe of Joseph, concerning which Moses gave no commandment concerning priesthood. Although God had promised in the law of Moses that if any man, not of the tribe and family of Levi and Aaron, should approach the office of priest, he would surely die; he is represented by Smith as blessing, approbating, and sustaining another family in this appropriated office. The God of Abraham or Joseph Smith must then be a liar!! And who will hesitate to pronounce him an impostor? This lie runs through his records for the first 600 years of his story.
   
   
2. This ignorant and impudent liar, in the next place, makes the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, violate his covenants with Israel and Judah concerning the land of Canaan, by promising a new land to the pious Jew. If a company of reprobate Jews had departed from Jerusalem and the temple in the days of Zedekiah, and founded a new colony, it would not have been so incongruous. But to represent God as inspiring a devout Jew and a prophet, such as Levi and Nephi are represented by Smith, with a resolution to forsake Jerusalem and God's own house, and to depart from the land which God swore to their fathers so long as they were obedient; and to guide by a miracle and to bless by prodigies a good man in forsaking God's covenant and worship--is so monstrous an error that language fails to afford a name for it.
   
   It is to make God violate his own covenants, and set at nought his own promises, and to convert his own curses into blessings. Excision from the commonwealth of Israel, and banishment from Jerusalem and the temple, were the greatest curses the law of Moses knew. But Smith makes a good and pious Jew the subject of this curse, and sends him off into the inhospitable wilderness, disinherits him in Canaan, and makes him more happy in forsaking the institutions of Moses, more intelligent in the wilderness, and more prosperous in adversity, than even the Jews in their best days, in the best of lands, and under the best of all governments!!! The impostor was too ignorant of the history of the Jews and the nature of the covenants of promise to have even alluded to them in his book if he had not supposed that he had the plates of Moses in his own keeping as he had his "molten plates" of Nephi. To separate a family from the nation of Israel, was to accumulate all the curses of the law upon that family, Deut. xxix. 21.  Read More >>