Peck, George. “Mormonism and the Mormons.” Methodist Quarter

Peck, George. “Mormonism and the Mormons.” Methodist Quarterly Review (January 1843): 111–27. Mormonism and the Mormons. ART.VIII.—1. Mormonism and the Mormons: an Historical View of the Rise and Progress of the Sect self-styled Latter-Day Saints. By DANIEL P. KIDDER. 18mo., pp. 342. New-York: G. Lane & P. P. Sandford. 1842. 2. The History of the Saints; or, and Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism. By JOHN C. BENNETT. 12mo., pp. 344. Boston: Leland & Whiting. New-York: Bradbury, Soden, & Co. Cinncinnati: E. S. Norris & Co. 1842. 3. The British Critic and Quarterly Theological Review. Number for October, 1842. Article VI. THE history of religious imposture is replete with facts as instructive and admonitory as humiliating and alarming. How it comes to pass that base and stupid imposition wins its way upon the credulity of multitudes of men, and finally comes to be regarded as the voice of God, is an inquiry which has in different ages of the world called forth the talents of the wise and good— of both philosophers and theologians. It is still however a fact, which to many is involved in inexplicable mystery. How rational minds can be gulled into a belief that the God of infinite holiness and wisdom would employ knaves to teach religion, and to perfect his own revelations, is a problem that many are not able to solve. A thorough understanding of the intellectual and moral character of man, as developed in the Holy Scriptures, and confirmed by experience and observation, will conduct us to the only safe and satisfactory conclusions upon this subject. Man is so constituted that religion is one of the wants of his nature, and religion of some sort he will have. But he is so perverted in his moral nature that he is averse to the pure and true religion which God has given him; and hence any new religion, or any modification of the old and true religion which offers him the unrestrained indulgence of his animal appetites, or some mitigation of the rigor of the divine precepts, finds in him a ready reception. There is also in many minds a fondness for novelty and the marvelous, which blinds both reason and conscience, and preponderates in their decisions in relation to matters of religion more generally than in any thing else. Such minds, when brought fairly under the power of some novelty, or some wonderful, and, to a cool judgment, incredible relation or theory, are almost wholly incapable of a regular process of reasoning, or of arriving at just conclusions in relation to the subject of their fanatical admiration. Hence we find men of every false religion perfectly honest in their adherence to it, and per- [111] fectly incompetent to see in it any defects, or to view in a just light the evidences of the selfish designs of those they make their spiritual guides, though all this is as obvious to all the world besides as the sun at noon-day.