Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate/Volume 3/Number 2/To the churches of Latter Day Saints

Messenger and Advocate.

Kirtland, Ohio, Nov. 1836.

TO THE CHURCHES OF LATTER DAY SAINTS.

As we have frequent applications by letter and otherwise, for advice respecting official members of this church relative to their observance of the word of wisdom, we have thought proper, that the churches need not be deceived nor official members think of living in transgression and hold their stations in said church, to publish below the decision of the High Council on that important item of our faith, given Feb. 4th, 1834.

"That no official member in this church is worthy to hold an office after having the words of wisdom properly taught to him, and he, the official member, neglecting to comply with, or obey them, after which the counsellors voted according to the same."

And above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectness, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.—Collossians 3:15, 16.

That we may have a clear idea of the force and meaning of the apostle's expression couched in the words we have quoted; it may be proper to notice some of his reasoning in the context. And first, it is evident that he addressed his epistle to the saints, to the members of that church which was built up and established upon those pure principles of the gospel which were inculcated by Jesus Christ himself and preached and promulgated by all the holy apostles to that time, so that he might with equal propriety as to the church at Ephesus, say, "Ye are built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." The apostle enumerates a catalogue of crimes of which probably many of the Collossians had been guilty, and warns and exhorts them with all his warmth of feeling and holy zeal for his Master's cause, to forsake them, and "deny themselves of all ungodliness and every worldly lust." He knew the power of habit, the strength of prejudice and the influence of surrounding examples; he, therefore, urges them with the greater vehemence to "put off concerning the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt and put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." After rehearsing those sins of which they had been guilty, and into which he well knew they were yet liable to fall, if they did not watch and pray, he now introduces the words we have chosen, as if he would propose something to them of more importance, of greater moment than the instructions he had before given them. "Above all these things said he, put on charity which is the bond of perfectness." By the term charity he doubtless would be understood to mean that commendable grace of which he speaks in the 1st epistle to the Corinthians 13th:1, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 verses.

It was not only necessary that they should abstain from evil, but that they should be exercised with love to God and one another, for the good reason that charity, or love, was the bond of perfectness. It was that which (if in exercise) secured them not only from every evil, but from every appearance of evil. It was that which rendered them acceptable to God; it was that which inspired them with confidence in their heavenly Father. It was the foundation of every springing hope in their breasts, and prompted every act of pure devotion that they or any other saints ever exercised towards the King of heaven. It necessarily opens up that intercourse with the upper world, that enables the saint, though he live in this world, to live above it.

Under the influence of this grace, the peace of God will rest with them, rule in and reign over them, to which the apostle says to his brethren they were called, in one body: and from a consideration that the peace, the joy and consolation, that the saints enjoy, and that they flow from him, from whom emanates light and life, he exhorts them to be thankful. It is, therefore, but just that we render thanksgiving and praise to God for all his mercies, "for every good gift and every perfect gift cometh from above, from the Father of lights in whom is neither variableness nor shadow of turning."—What heart so black with infamy and crime as not to be touched with feelings of gratitude to a disinterested benefactor! We should be ready to conclude there was none, were we not from experience, compelled to think otherwise. Our own observation in our intercourse with the world has verified what the same apostle said in his epistle to Timothy should be in the last days. Men shall be unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, &c. with all the train of vices and evil propensities, incident to a heart void of that charity which he commends so highly, calling it the bond of perfectness.

We ought to be very careful that we do not mistake mere sympathy for the grace of which we have spoken.—We shall find sympathy to dwell in a greater or less degree in the bosom of every intelligent being in the universe—even the brute creation evidently possess a share of it, but are as destitute of that charity, that love to God our heavenly Father, of which the apostle speaks, as the vilest wretch that the Lord ever suffered to live. That distress and anxiety to relieve a fellow creature in pain which we often see manifested is by no means charity—therefore, can no person claim the peculiar favor of heaven for the exercise or influence of it. And neither can any one expect the approbation of heaven without it. Destitute of it we should be unfit to assemble together, and for all society here below, where calamities, casualties, and all the miseries incident to frail mortality beset the traveler in his pilgrimage through this unfriendly, inconstant world.

There appears to be no obscurity in the apostle's meaning when he writes to his brethren on this subject; he was not only plain and conclusive in his addresses to them, but he seemed to have designed the same instructions to benefit other churches, for says he, when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church at Laodicea. If it were proper for the church at Laodicea, it was because they were prone to the same vices, and had need of the same admonition, the same rebuke and the same self denial on their part to entitle them to the rewards of the righteous.

Once more in conclusion we say, if we are the saints of the most high God, the same remarks apply with equal and unabated force to us. God is the same, his gospel the same and he requires the same obedience to his commands. W.