Is Mormonism properly defined as a cult?

One such movement, professing to be the only true religion, outside of which there is no salvation, and originating in the United States of America, is known as THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

It is alternatively called Mormonism after their Book of Mormon, which they put on an equality with the Holy Scriptures of truth. We cannot put their claims to a better test than that laid down by our Lord, “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matt. 12:37).

The Mormons, or (as they now prefer to be named) “The Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints,” have their headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America. Here they have a great and costly temple, to which they say Christ will come at His Second Advent. The sect was founded on April 6th, 1830, by Joseph Smith, its first prophet and Seer. It claims a membership of several hundred thousand “in the organized states of Zion,” besides fifty thousand in various missions, with a hierarchy of Presidents, Apostles, Patriarchs, High Priests, and Elders, numbering 10,000, divided into two orders, bearing the names of the Melchizedeck and Aaronic Priesthood. Year after year, groups of preaching Elders are sent forth by the Apostles, working under their direction, to gain new converts and make Mormon disciples by their Gospel of Faith, Repentance, Baptism, and Laying on of Hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. In this capacity, stylishly dressed young men of attractive personal appearance, enter towns and villages, usually in pairs, at first discoursing on subjects which they know to be generally accepted among Christians. Then as they gain the ears and the confidence of their hearers—more particularly of the weaker sex, to whom they pay particular attention, for reasons which will hereafter appear—the real doctrines of Mormonism, or as many of them as it is politic to advance, are brought forth, with every persuasion to embrace and confess the Mormon faith, and be enrolled as true members and citizens of the coming Zion, to be built upon the American Continent. While as the preachers themselves confess, little progress is being made in these “orthodox” and Bible-loving lands, there are always a few stragglers ready to take up with every new religion, no matter what its merits. And the apparent sincerity and zeal, with which the Mormon preachers set forth their doctrines, is an attraction to some who have not known the “depths of Satan,” or with what subtlety and cunning be seeks to deceive and seduce from the Gospel of God's grace and the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Cor. 11:3), into paths of error and moral degradation.

It will be shown in these pages that the Mormon creed is a complete denial of the fundamental truths of the Christian faith, a corruption of the grace of God, a caricature of the Church as set forth in the Scriptures, and a degradation of the sacred relations of husband and wife as God has instituted them and means them to continue. To expose and warn against such blasphemies and immoralities becomes a duty, and if these pages are used to warn the unwary, and deliver any whose feet may be in the snare, they will serve the purpose for which they go forth.

It is only fair that the history and doctrines of this people be here given, as set forth in their own acknowledged writings, by their accredited teachers, and not from the criticisms of their opponents We therefore quote from “the Book of Mormon,” which lies before us, a bulky volume of 623 pages, which they acknowledge to be of “Divine Authenticity,” and which they confess they “believe to be the Word of God” as much as the Bible. We also quote from the works and utterances of Joseph Smith the founder, Brigham Young his successor, and other accredited Presidents and Prophets, who are accepted and proclaimed in the Mormon Church as “divinely authorised to teach.” There can be no doubt therefore that these are the true doctrines and practices of the Mormon Church, as it exists at the present time.

It began with Higher Criticism, started by a Frenchman, Astruc, and fathered by Jews, who hated the name of Christ, and finally adopted by so-called Christian professors in Germany. It has spread to Britain, America, Australia, indeed, all over the world, and has undermined the faith of multitudes in the inspiration of Scripture. It made the success of Darwinism and New Theology possible. Alongside of this corruption of orthodox religion there is the swarm of anti-Christian cults which number their followers by the million. We refer to Christadelphianism, Seventh-Day Adventism, Millennial Dawnism (Jehovah’s Witnesses), Christian Science, Mormonism, and the like. Each with distinctive features, they all unite in denying the deity of Christ, the value of His atoning death and the eternal punishment of the wicked as described by Scripture. Then, again, The Tongues Movement with its extravagancies and more than suspicion of demon origin is significant. Whilst few will assemble to hear the Gospel faithfully preached, crowds will flock to hear these lies of the devil.

All this is fully evidenced in our days, the latter times which are the perilous times (2 Tim. 3:1). The mystery of godliness, the doctrine of Christ, is being increasingly denied and rejected by seducing spirits, active in systems like the destructive criticism, Unitarianism, the New Theology and others. And in "Christian Science," Spiritism, Mormonism and other "cults" we find the very doctrines of demons. Anyone who rejects the mystery of godliness, no matter what else he may put in its place, has departed from the faith and becomes the prey of seducing spirits who lead him on to destruction and eternal ruin. And these seducers and seducing spirits, Satan's ministers, appear as ministers of righteousness (2 Cor. 11:15). They feign sanctity, "speaking lies in hypocrisy." They teach the most deadly error under the cloak of piety, devotion and of deeper religious knowledge. Evil and error put on the form of truth and godliness. All this fits the different systems which claim to be "Christian," but which are "anti-Christian." They have seared, that is branded, consciences; claiming to lead others into righteousness and holiness while their consciences are defiled.

The anti-Christian sects, such as Christian Science, Millennial Dawnism, Seventh Day Adventists, Christadelphianism, Mormonism, the Tongues Movement, and others, are all alike in this, that they more or less plainly deny the Deity of Christ and His atoning work.

We have already seen what unpardonable liberties the Mormon teachers take with the Holy Scriptures, undermining the very fundamentals of the Christian faith, and substituting for them their own blasphemous and unclean teaching. Not only are they guilty of this, but they put the Book of Mormon, a religious novel with no foundation in fact, on an equality with the Bible. Nay, still further, they put the words of a President, and of writings of Mormon origin, as of equal value with the Holy Scriptures. Surely such statements as these should be sufficient to open the eyes of those blinded by this emanation of the bottomless pit.

We have purposely refrained from quoting at length Mormon teaching. The little we have extracted is more than sufficient to condemn Mormonism out of the mouths of its accredited leaders and teachers. They stand utterly condemned by what they themselves say.

Mormonism began in America in the beginning of the 19th century. The infidelity of Mormonism is peculiar. The Mormons profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in repentance, etc.; but their infidelity spite of their "faith" which scarce exceeds the eastern delusion appears in this article of their creed, — "We believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the book of Mormon to be the Word of God." To add to God's word is no less infidelity than to deny any part of it. The difference as to this, between the ancient and the modern delusion, is one of degree, not of kind. The ancient says that though there may possibly be some part of the Bible true, no belief is to be placed in the copies held by christians. The later delusion accepts the Bible as christians have it, "as far as it is translated correctly." Thus Gnosticism, Mohammedanism, and Mormonism have this in common — the insufficiency of the Word of God. Each more or less sanctioned corruption; for the denial of the Word of God, whether in the form of taking from it, or of adding to it, opens the door for every fleshly wickedness.

Mormonism teaches that God used to be a man on another world and that he became a god by following the laws and ordinances of his god on his home world. He brought his wife to this world, a woman he had married on the other world. She is, essentially, a goddess. In his present god-state, he rules our world. He has a body of flesh and bones. Since god and his wife are both exalted persons, they each possess physical bodies. In their exalted states as deities, they produce spirit children that grow and mature in the spiritual realm. The first spirit born was Jesus. Afterwards Lucifer was born along with the rest of us. So, Mormonism teaches that we all pre-existed in the spirit realm having been produced from the union of god and his goddess wife. Therefore, we all existed in spirit form before coming down and entering the bodies of human babies that are being born on earth. During this ‘compression' into the infant state, the memories of their pre-existence are 'veiled.'

The Mormons' God

It will be an astonishment doubtless to some, who have been inclined to think charitably of this people and of their doctrines, to learn that according to the Mormon creed, there is “no God,” that is, no Divine Being such as the Scriptures reveal. Here is what the Prophet, Joseph Smith, says: “God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man.” “God Himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on earth the same as Jesus Christ did.” “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's.” And the following, by Brigham Young, leaves no doubt as to who this “exalted man” is, I who was “once as we are,” and is now a God. “When our father Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his celestial wives. He helped to make and organize this world. He is our Father and our God, the ONLY God with whom we have to do” (Journal of Discourses). This is blasphemy! What is the need of a Gospel to convert sinners to fallen Adam, as the “only God” with whom they “have to do,” or of “preaching elders” evangelising to bring converts to worship “an exalted man,” who formerly lived in Eden with one of his celestial wives? The Mormon creed goes on to say that Jesus Christ was Adam's son by ordinary generation, that the Fall was a necessity, “that men might be,” and that those who practise celestial marriage on earth, will “pass by the angels” and “be God's themselves. This brands the Mormon faith as Polytheism of the lowest and grossest kind.

received a very meagre education. At the age of 14, he became concerned about eternal things, and being unable to get any reliable help from ministers and churches, he resolved to investigate the subject for himself. Retiring into a solitary place in a grove, he prayed to God, and while thus engaged, he says he had a vision, two glorious personages encircled with a heavenly light appearing to him, who told him that all the churches and denominations were wrong, that none of them was acknowledged by God as His church, and that the true Gospel and the true church would be revealed to him at a future time. Thus the early dawn of Mormonism is described. It is not claimed that some fresh light had been given on the already existing Word of God, such as Luther received when in the act of climbing Pilate's stair, on his hands and knees, at Rome, a voice from the Word of God sounded with power through his soul, “The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:18), making what was already there a fresh message to meet his need, breaking the bonds of Romanism in which he was bound. No such light arose in the dark and troubled soul of Joseph Smith, but a hallucination, conceived in his disordered mind, or imparted by some lying spirit—as Scripture shows such are capable of giving (2 Chr. 18:21: 1 John 4:6) to deceive, and then use him to lead others into Satanic delusion and deception (2 Tim. 3:13).